


and the stars shine bright

by JennaCupcakes



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Multi, bb-8 is an r2d2 fanboy, gratuitous movie nights, reluctant teacher luke skywalker
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-15
Updated: 2017-08-15
Packaged: 2018-12-15 16:30:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 30,024
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11809842
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JennaCupcakes/pseuds/JennaCupcakes
Summary: Coming to D'quar as the young heroes of the Resistance carries quite some expectations for Rey, Poe, and Finn, and there's work to be done. Finn's still in a coma, Luke Skywalker has to be found, and meanwhile, they all have to figure out what they mean to each other. And Rey has to learn what it means to be a Jedi.





	and the stars shine bright

**Author's Note:**

> This began as a story about three people falling in love, and trying to figure out space for that in their (very chaotic) lives. It also became a story about the Resistance, and its people, and about Luke Skywalker's reservations with regard to teaching Jedi. Enjoy.

Rey figures Poe Dameron can’t be that hard to spot. Orange jumpsuit, fancy hair and a wide smile, that was how Finn had described him, and the mess hall seems like the place where everybody has to show up at least once a day. She just has to make camp in a corner, the hood of her jacket drawn over her face to avoid unwanted attention, and wait.

After a lifetime spent on a desert planet where her only contact with other beings was outcasts and criminals that were equally untrusting as her, the Resistance base is… overwhelming. There’s no other word for it. Everybody keeps wanting to talk to her, to congratulate her or to just cast a look at the legend that seems to suddenly walk among them. Rey doesn’t really know what to say to them all, so she just hides and hopes the General will give the A-OK for the Skywalker mission soon.

But she needs to talk to Poe Dameron before she goes.

Ever since she heard that the pilot that Finn busted out of a Star Destroyer is alive, she knew she’d have to find him. Besides her, he’s the only person who really knows Finn, she figures, and she can only stare at Finn’s lifeless figure in bacta so long before she feels like he might never wake up again. She wants a reminder that Finn will make it.

“Do you mind if I sit with you?”

Rey flinches and says goodbye to her dignity as – of course – Poe Dameron sits down on the bench next to her. At least she assumes it’s Dameron – the guy isn’t wearing a jumpsuit, but his hair _is_ particularly fancy, and his smile rivals the proverbial glow of a leaking hyperdrive.

“Hello,” she says, “No, I don’t mind.”

He puts down his plate full of grey cardboard standard rations on the table and sits.

“I was looking for you,” he confesses, just as Rey opens her mouth to say the same. She catches his eye and he laughs. “I’m Poe Dameron.”

“You were with Finn on the Star Destroyer,” she says, though it’s half a question. She wants to know where that wide-eyed guy she came to know as Finn came from, and who that man is that allowed him to make his escape, thought it was probably more a thing of mutual aid.

“And you helped him get BB-8 off Jakku,” Dameron responds, “No small feat. I heard you flew the Falcon without having the slightest about how those Corellian types work.”

“I have a knack for machinery,” Rey is quick to say, not used to the bright praise. She trusts her abilities, but she doesn’t often hear the same from anyone else.

“And I have a knack for knitting, but that doesn’t mean I can knit myself a jumpsuit out of nowhere.” Dameron is still grinning at her with something she might come to call admiration. “Care to race me some day? Really, I’d love to see more of your work.”

Rey has to laugh despite herself. “Maybe one day, yes.”

Dameron’s smile suddenly becomes shy, like he isn’t sure that he said the right thing. He takes a few bites of the rations on his plate. Rey shifts and feels the lightsaber under her jacket move. It’s still an unfamiliar weight, but she doesn’t feel right leaving it anywhere else.

“I saw you in sickbay this morning,” Poe confesses.

Rey looks over at him. Under his cheerful nature, he seems exhausted when she takes a closer look.

“I wish he would wake up,” Rey replies.

Dameron nods carefully. “He saved my life.”

“Mine, too,” Rey says.

Dameron continues with his meal. Rey’s teeth clench with the memory of the battle.

“Just… why did he have to attack Ren? He must have been holding him off on his own for a good two minutes before I woke up. It was so stupid, he doesn’t even know how to use a lightsaber but there I see him, in one-to-one combat with a Force-user.”

She notices how Dameron’s hand clenches around his fork, and stops.

“I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking.”

“It’s okay,” Dameron is quick to assure her, “I was interrogated by him, is all, and I’m a bit jumpy around the mention of him. But you went through the same and you fought him off, so I won’t complain.”

Rey wonders if the story has travelled through all of the base. Everybody already seems to know she’s a Force-user, when she herself isn’t even really sure what that means.

“Hey.” Rey puts her hand on his arm before she can think. “Don’t. What you went through, what I went through, it’s terrible. You shouldn’t… you shouldn’t feel bad for being afraid.”

She knows _she_ was afraid of Ren when he had tried to worm its way into her head, and she would still be afraid if she hadn’t found in herself the powers to match him. Now she knows that he, too, is scared, but it doesn’t do anything for the feeling of helplessness that first overcame her and that she still remembers. She can only imagine how Dameron must feel.

“I would have died on that Star Destroyer if it hadn’t been for Finn,” Dameron says. The wave of hurt that comes off him in that moment is so strong that Rey reels back for a second. Maybe her Force-abilities are getting stronger now, but she never got this kind of clear emotion from anyone else.

She realises she must have been staring.

“I’m sorry,” she says, and doesn’t specify what for. She imagines there are quite a lot of things to feel sorry about.

“When he wakes up, I’ll make it up to him,” Dameron vows and Rey knows he’s saying it more for his benefit than hers. She nods anyway, to let him know he’s not alone in this. She, too, will make up some things to Finn.

Dameron finishes his meal in silence, but lingers after it is done.

“They put you on the Skywalker mission, didn’t they?” he asks, as if he hadn’t been there when the whole thing was decided. Rey nods.

“I’m just waiting on the say-so from the General. She says she wants more intel on the route to make sure we’re not intercepted. The Falcon is a well-known ship, but it’d be stupid to take anything else.”

“Right, we don’t have a faster ship than that one,” Poe agrees, “So you’ll be leaving soon?”

“I hope,” Rey says, “Right now it’s all very chaotic.”

Poe laughs. “Don’t I know it. The rooster’s a mess, and we keep having to cancel our training flights because of false alarms. Usually the Resistance is much better organised.”

“If you say so.”

It’s only when Poe catches her small smile that he realises she’s teasing him.

“Alright. Well, I won’t keep you any longer. I expect you’ll have to fix a lot of damage on the Falcon.”

He gets up but hesitates for a moment. “Hey, if you ever need any help with that… I’ve never flown one of these, but I know my way around an engine. Or if you get tired of the Wookie company. Give me a call. This is my private intercom code.”

He pats down his jumpsuit for a slip of paper, then writes down a combination of digits and hands it to her. Rey doesn’t have the heart to tell him that she doesn’t have a communicator. Anyway, it’s the gesture that counts, and Dameron seems sincere.

“Thank you,” she says, and gets up to shake his hand. It’s a bit stiff and awkward, but Poe smiles brightly. Maybe he knows she means well and just isn’t sure how to get it across, too.

“I’ll see you around,” he says.

\--

Despite the fact that life on the Resistance base is more hectic now than ever, Poe makes time in his schedule to sit with Finn in the medbay.

He needs time for himself, time to clear his mind and think about the quite scary things that have happened to him in the last few days. In all his time in the Resistance, he has never been this close to death so many times in a row, and it left him dizzy in a way he doesn’t enjoy.

Also, in all his days in the Resistance, he has never met anybody like Finn.

Poe has his feet kicked up on a chair and his headphones plugged into his music player. The bacta tank allows him to feed in an audio stream, either via microphone or transmission, to help relatives ease their injured kin through recovery. Poe is using it to let Finn in on the secrets of his music collection.

He should be out there right now, he’s on cleaning duty on their floor this week and the floors don’t sweep themselves, but Pava took his shift with an eye roll and a promise to make it up to her. He appreciates the fact that she always seems to know exactly when he just needs a good kick in the ass or when he really needs to be alone. It probably comes with having flown so many missions together.

So he’s here, and he’s talking to Finn, who is still unconscious and currently getting the best of Gaviian disco music fed into his bacta tank.

“I don’t know about you, buddy, but I think it’s about time for you to wake up.”

Of course that’s ridiculous, people don’t wake up in bacta, they’re extracted from the tank and _then_ woken up, but Poe just wants to hear Finn’s voice again so badly.

“It was really brave what you did. I owe you. We all owe you.”

The music is a silent trickle through the headphones. Poe just has one earplug in, the other is dangling somewhere in front of his shirt. The only other sounds are the beeps and hums of machinery around them. The med-droids left some time ago to give him some privacy.

“They told me they’ll keep him in the tank for at least another two days.”

Rey enters suddenly. She is light on her feet so that even without the headphones on, Poe probably wouldn’t have heard her.

“Hello,” he says, “Yeah, I heard the same thing.”

He nods towards the tank, where Finn is floating, stripped to short boxers and an undershirt, skin an unhealthy tint of green through the glass and the blue-ish fluids. He looks lifeless, and Poe should not be phased by that but really, really is.

Rey’s eyes wander between Finn and Poe.

“What are you doing?” she asks with a nod towards the headphones.

“Showing him some music. I figure he hasn’t had a lot of chance to listen to anything with his upbringing and all. It just seems such a sad thing to miss out on.”

Rey cocks her head curiously. “Can you show me, too?”

Poe suddenly realises that maybe she doesn’t know a lot of music, either. He sits up straighter and grabs for the other earplug. “Of course, yes! Here, take this.”

He hands her the earplug and watches her carefully insert it into her ear, watches her make a surprised face at the first few notes and then watches the look of concentration that takes its place as she lets herself get lost in the music. She approaches all things, Poe thinks, like puzzles waiting to be figured out.

After a while, she starts nodding her head along, and a smile creeps up on Poe’s face. He realises he wants her to like him, wants her to open up to him as she did to Finn.

“It’s quite nice,” she says.

Poe can’t, for the life of him, figure out if she’s just being polite.

“Hey, I have loads more. I’ll give you some, and you can figure out what you like. Just come by my room sometime, I must have a spare player somewhere…”

Is Rey turning red? Poe trails off.

“Thank you,” Rey says, her eyes focussed on Finn in the tank.

“I try to switch it up a bit from time to time. I mean, I don’t even know what he likes to listen to…” Poe is absent-mindedly fiddling with the player in his hand. “Maybe he’ll really hate my taste in music taste when he gets out of the bacta, and he won’t even know why.”

“If I were in there, I’d be glad to know that someone is keeping an eye out for me.”

Poe is surprised at what seems like a very raw moment of honesty from Rey. Despite her being a very guarded person, she seems to tentatively reach out from time to time. Maybe it’s just taking her time to figure out how to do that.

When Poe doesn’t respond, Rey continues.

“I’d feel so… vulnerable. It’s a terrible place to be.”

Poe figures she doesn’t like to feel helpless.

“Okay, deal. When you manage to get yourself in one of those things, I’ll watch over you. I’ll even play you more force-awful music if that’s what you want.”

Rey looks at him with wide eyes for a second before composing herself again. Her face is so different when it’s open, so different from the carefully guarded expression she usually keeps.

“Why are you doing this?”

“Being nice?” Poe doesn’t want to scare her away. Maybe he’s been moving to fast, he doesn’t want to overwhelm her. “I’m sorry, if you want me to leave you alone, you just have to say it. I don’t want to make you uncomfortable.”

“No, no!” Her hands are wrung in her lap. “It’s not that. I just… you are so nice to Finn, and you speak so highly of him. But you don’t even know me.”

“I know that Finn liked you, and I trust his judgement,” Poe replies.

“Oh.”

Rey looks down at her hands. She appears genuinely taken aback.

“In that case, thank you.”

Poe smiles carefully, looking at her until she meets his eyes.

“Hey, I figure it can’t be easy having everybody looking at you like you’ll pull a Luke Skywalker here and now where you stand. I don’t need a piece of the action, but I’d be glad to help.”

She laughs at that, always cutting herself off mid-laugh like she thought better of it.

“Yes, the last few days were… weird.”

“Hey, I know how it is.” Poe frowns. “Well, not the Force part but when I meet people in the Resistance, it always takes them a while to realise I’m just a guy. A guy who can fly an X-Wing passably well and has a whole lot of dumb luck. I don’t want any special treatment.”

“Exactly!” Rey’s shoulders sag in relief. “I’m just… I’m not anything special. I didn’t even know I had Force powers until this week. I can’t read peoples’ minds or move stuff with mine.”

“Have you talked to the General yet?” Poe asks.

“More than I have with anyone else in the last days. Why?” Rey responds.

“Hm. If you feel like it, maybe you could tell her what you told me. She’s a Skywalker, if you know what I mean. That family knows a thing or two about being singled out.”

Poe isn’t sure how much he can reveal to Rey without breaking the General’s trust, but if Leia hasn’t volunteered any information so far, Poe thinks she certainly should have. Who knows if Rey will find Luke? In the meantime, she could use Leia’s guidance.

“I… will.”

Poe is sure Rey can sense he is holding something back, Force-sensitive or not. There is a crease on her forehead, but she lets it go.

“Well, thank you for the music, but I should get some food.”

She removes the earplug and gets up, fixing her new clothes. She looks inexplicably younger in clean clothes and with brushed hair. Poe wonders how old she is.

“How can you keep eating that ration stuff day after day?” Poe asks, “I got sick of it on day three.”

“Actually, it’s much better than what we got on Jakku,” she says, “The ration packs there were literally just comprised nutrients. At least the rations here taste like more than cardboard.”

“Okay, that’s it, you’re coming with me.”

Poe gets up and switches off the music player.

“My squad and I are having home-cooked meals at least four times a week, and I’m making tonight one of these times.”

Rey’s eyes light up just the tiniest bit. “You would do that?”

“Sure,” he says with a smile. “My mom taught me how to cook a really great Yavinii rye stew. You’ll love it. Tastes loads better than the stuff they serve in the mess.”

\--

Eight days after the destruction of Starkiller base, Rey and Poe have fallen into a comfortable routine. They usually find each other in the medbay, Poe on leave between missions and training, and Rey still waiting on a word from General Organa. There they listen to music or watch a holovid and distract each other from the fact that Finn still hasn’t been taken out of the tank. It’s his seventh day under, and although that’s a perfectly acceptable time, it’s beginning to get on both their nerves.

On this day, Poe is first and browsing his collection of holovids. He wants to show Rey one of his favourites, _Raiders of the lost Holocron_ , and hopes she likes action movies. Considering her life, she’s probably way more awesome at all those stunts than the protagonist, but still. Also, when he was sixteen, Poe had the most embarrassing crush on the lead actor. His family still won’t let him live that one down. There’s one cousin who keeps sending Poe life-sized posters for every single one of his birthdays.

He has some easy listening music playing in the background, and again he fails to hear Rey enter until she is standing next to him, her eyes fixed on Finn. He is proud to say that he barely jumps at her sudden appearances anymore.

“I just got the A-OK from the General,” she says by way of greeting, and Poe takes a closer look. Her face is weary, lines of deep worry etched into her face, and she is staring at Finn with resignation. “I just hoped he’d wake up before I leave.”

Poe follows her gaze towards Finn. “Actually, the med-droid was just here. They said they’re taking him out tomorrow, so you might at least get to say a proper goodbye. Even if he doesn’t wake up.”

The lines on Rey’s face soften a bit at that. “Really?”

“Yeah.”

Poe pats the chair next to his. “Come on, I picked a great movie. At least you’ll get to relax a bit before your big day.”

Rey nods and sits down, but Poe can tell her heart isn’t in it.

“Nervous?” he asks.

Rey looks at him, expression unreadable. “Yes. Force, I am _so_ nervous.”

And Poe laughs, and she laughs, and the he offers her a hug and she accepts and they watch the holovid and try to be optimistic about tomorrow in any way possible.

\--

Rey learns new things about herself every day now. She discovers that she doesn’t like to keep her hair open, even now that she doesn’t have to keep it braided back for safety reasons all the time anymore. She discovers that she doesn’t like rye stew, but that she loves Poe’s spiced bake-rolls, and that she has a penchant for quiet music.

She also learns that she hates goodbyes.

The only goodbye she can remember taking – not counting her family leaving her –  is her forced leave of Jakku, and that still hurts, even though perspective tells her that whatever family she had will not come back for her there. But hanging out in front of the medbay now she realises she is stalling, because she doesn’t want to say goodbye to Finn.

She already watched the droids take him out of bacta under the careful supervision of a humanoid doctor. They were very gentle with him, and the doctor checked Finn’s pupil reaction afterwards and seemed satisfied. They dried him off and dressed him in warmer clothes and then left him alone.

And Rey is still standing in front of the doors.

She wonders how Finn will feel if he wakes up before she comes back. Will he be sad that she left, or will he understand why she had to go? She can’t imagine him holding a grudge against anyone, really. Still, she doesn’t want him to be disappointed. He went through so much with her.

She shifts her weight from one leg to another, and feels the lightsaber move against her hip again. She’s taken to wear her jacket almost everywhere, mostly because she is genuinely cold, coming from a desert world, but also to hide the cylindrical shape at her side. Of all the people on the base, she thinks only the General suspects Rey is carrying the thing with her everywhere now.

Thinking of the General reminds her that she still hasn’t taken Poe’s advice and talked to Leia Organa about her worries. It seems trivial, to bother a General with her problems, but Poe had seemed to hint at something other than just a little motherly advice. But she’s not sure if she’s ready to open up all that much just yet.

Opening up after almost a lifetime of solitude is a challenge. She’d only just managed it with Finn when he had to go and fall into a coma, and now she’s carefully testing the waters with Poe, who, despite being one of the most famous and revered beings on base save for maybe General Organa, seems like just another guy. A genuinely nice guy, who will cook the new girl food and hang out with her to watch silly movies and make comments about the lead actor’s hair and how great he looks in torn shirts.

So Rey hates goodbyes. She thought she’d want nothing more than to escape the busy activity of the base after more than a week here, but the truth is that now she feels like she will kind of miss it.

The clock on the wall tells her that there’s no point in stalling any longer. Chewbacca is waiting for her at the Falcon.

She approaches the doors and they open with a hiss. Inside it smells like disinfectant and bacta, a tickling sensation in Rey’s nose that always makes her feel like she will have to sneeze any minute. Finn is lying on a bed at the far end of the room now, his complexion much healthier than it had seemed through the glass and the bacta. He looks like he’s in deep sleep, but he’s also connected to all sorts of machinery and that breaks the illusion.

“Hey,” Rey whispers, crouching down next to the cot and putting her hand on Finn’s.

He doesn’t say anything, and she feels stupid.

“I have to leave now,” she says, “I have to find Luke Skywalker and learn how to be a Jedi and figure out what it means that I can use the Force. I’ll be gone for a while, but I’ll come back as fast as I can.”

Against her will, she can feel tears welling up and shuts her eyes tightly for a moment. “You do your best to wake up, okay? Wake up for me, and I’ll tell you about all the stuff I saw when I come back.”

She presses a kiss to Finn’s forehead, and he still doesn’t move, but she has exhausted herself. She wipes her eyes with the back of her hand and stands, shakily.

_Finn will wake up_ , she tells herself.

\--

When Poe comes into the hangar that morning, the Falcon is already gone. Rey hadn’t come to say goodbye, although he’d half expected it, but he figures their movie night yesterday counted as a kind of goodbye and anyway, she will be back. There is no need for extended, drawn-out reassurances. He simply refuses to believe she will do anything other than come back healthily and fine.

He throws himself into his duties more rigorously the next week. There are training flights, scheduled maintenances of all the X-Wings in his division, there are his cleaning duties and cooking with his squad. It almost feels normal again, except for the fact that nothing is normal.

There’s a sharp awareness of the fact that they’re at war now.

The New Republic has been obliterated, and the First Order has come forward much better organised than anybody had expected. Sure, their home base might be destroyed but Poe is sure they’ll show their face again soon enough, and then it will be up to the Resistance to keep them at bay. Even now, General Organa is doing her best to keep the remaining systems organised, to keep them from falling into chaos and to help them work together and provide the Resistance with resources they direly need.

Their focus now lies on being prepared for when the First Order strikes next, so Poe and his squad get sent out on three scouting missions in the span of five days. They leave early in the morning and return late at night, legs cramped from a day spent in the cockpit. They eat their rations mid-flight, and otherwise enjoy all the comforts of full-day missions. Suffices to say say that the long-distance flight suits have a built-in _toilet_ , but that doesn’t make it any more comfortable.

When Poe returns, he sleeps like the dead, even through Snap’s snoring and the scrape of Pava’s cutlery, who always manages to eat a full meal no matter the time of day once they come home. He wonders absent-mindedly where the tiny woman puts it all.

Poe finds less time to visit Finn in medbay, but when he does, Finn always looks the same. His face barely moves, although the med-droids tell Poe there’s cause for hope, that Finn’s vitals look promising, that he could wake up any time now.

Poe relays everything he learns to Rey, even though he’s not sure she can even pick up a signal where she’s going. She’ll get them eventually, and then she’ll be grateful.

To his surprise, Poe spends quite some time with General Organa, who keeps asking him for his input on their preparations. He’s no strategist, but he does his best, and listens to the other people in the room put forward advice and concerns. He wonders if their situation really is as dire as it seems to him every time they finish a meeting, and how the others cope with it.

\--

When Finn wakes up, it’s with a start and the distinct feeling he is still in mortal danger.

It takes a good three minutes for him to piece the rest together.

He’s breathing heavy and sweating and not sure what he’s wearing or where he is. It doesn’t help that his hoarse shouting – it’s more of a sad croak, really – only brings med droids at first, who beep in foreign binary code, and that it takes the doctor a good ten minutes to show their face.

“Ah, good, I see you’ve woken up,” they say, and if Finn hadn’t just _woken up from a goddamn coma_ he probably would have noticed the alliance starbird on their uniform. As it is, he only stares up at the humanoid face and tries to force out words.

“Where am I?” he asks, and every word hurts more than the previous, speaking is agony but he’s still so scared. What if he’s back with the First Order? Where the fuck is he?

The doctor, who seems to finally realise what his problem is, crouches down next to him. Their skin is only a shade lighter than Finn’s, but seems to be slightly bioluminescent, and Finn, who hasn’t seen many beings except as blueprints in simulations, is momentarily distracted by that.

“You’re on the Resistance base. My name is Baile Gareb, and I’m your doctor. If you let me, I’ll check some of your body functions and then get you a glass of water, okay?”

Finn feels relief wash over him and has to lie back down from where he was propped up on his elbows. “Thank the Force.”

He focusses on his breathing and can’t do anything else for several minutes while an endless staccato of _I’m fine_ _I’m fine I’m fine_ is playing in his head. He’s not dead, he’s not captured, he’s not in terrible agony and he’s with the Resistance. He’s fine.

The doctor moves away from the bed but comes back quickly with a glass of water, a stethoscope and a flashlight. Finn knows what they’re checking for, knows that waking up from a coma is delicate and they want to make sure that all his brain functions are in order, but everything is still so jumbled in his mind. He has a hard time recalling the events from what he guesses are the last twelve hours before his fight with Ren. He did fight Ren, right? That was how he ended up here?

It hurts his head to think, so he just closes his eyes and lets the doctor finish the check-up. When they’re done, they give him water to drink in small gulps, and promise him a small actual dinner if he keeps down the water. Till then, he will remain hooked up to the IV drip, which Finn discovers quickly is easy to watch to keep his mind focussed.

He is pretty sure they saved Rey, or Rey saved them. They did meet on Starkiller, and they got out of the burning building. Poe is alive, too, Finn remembers that clearly. But he also remembers the X-Wings in the sky above the First Order base being shot down like songbirds, and wonders now how certain he can be of that. And why are neither Poe nor Rey here?

The evening shift is a twi’lek nurse with rather short lekku and a no-nonsense attitude. He introduces himself as Dek, no last name given, and brings Finn a small dinner consisting of bread and a few greens after he checked his vitals.

“You’re lucky,” he says to Finn, “Normally it would just be standard rations, but the General herself insisted we get you some real food.”

He looks Finn up and down like he is trying to take in more than the medical data sheets can tell him.

“I don’t know what stuff you Stormtroopers are made of, but I want some. I have never seen somebody recover from an injury like that quite as quickly. You’re one lucky fella.”

Finn wants to say he feels lucky, but then again, he isn’t really sure.

“Where are my friends?” he manages to ask, though his throat still hurts every time he uses his voice. It feels like a mynock crawled up there and died.

“Don’t worry, they’re fine,” the nurse says, and Finn wonders how he can know that, since Finn hasn’t even given him any names. “You’re still confused from your long time under. It’ll take you some time to adjust. Until then, it’s better to only give you only a little stimulus at a time.”

He smiles. “We have to take care of that head of yours, yes? Take it slow.”

He seems to want to extract a promise from Finn, so Finn nods, and the nurse seems satisfied. “Great. When you’ve finished that, just put it down on the table and I’ll pick it up later. Try to rest.”

Finn nods again and the nurse leaves. He finishes his food slowly, giving his stomach time to protest but keeps it down just fine. The bread tastes amazing, still warm and heavy in a way that signifies home-made rather than store-bought bread. Not that Finn would know much about breadmaking. The greens are overcooked but still tastier than everything Finn has ever eaten. He finishes his food and puts down the tray, then realised how very tired he is.

How can he still be tired after spending… and that’s when he realises that he doesn’t even know how long he’s been in a coma.

How long was he out? A day? Two? A week? _Longer_? He doesn’t have a beard or anything, but feels this is probably something the overly attentive medial droids would have taken care of. There is no calendar in sight, and the medical screens don’t display the date. At least he’s pretty sure that he hasn’t been unconscious for years. He’s pretty sure he’d look different, then.

Still, he’s relieved when Dek comes back.

“Hey, Dek,” he says, trying not to let his nervousness show but failing, hands clenched in the sheets, “How long was I in a coma?”

Dek, who just picked up a tray, has to balance it on one hand to check the date on his chrono.

“About two weeks,” he responds, “You were in bacta for a week, and then we took you out to see how you’d respond. You healed pretty well, like I said.”

Relief washes over Finn for the second time today. “Okay. That’s good, thank you.”

He lets his eyes fall shut, giving in to how tired he feels. “I think I’ll sleep now.”

“You do that,” Dek laughs, “Don’t worry, you’ll feel much better in a couple of days. You just need some time to adjust.”

\--

“He’s been awake for twenty-four hours and you’re telling me that _now_?”

Poe fears he isn’t being entirely fair towards the General. He was, after all, stuck in an X-Wing for much of those aforementioned twenty-four hours, and then he was stuck in debrief and then Leia probably wanted to make sure that Poe actually _did_ clean the bathrooms this time instead of hovering by Finn’s bedside. Still, he feels a little distressed at the thought of Finn having been awake for so long without seeing a familiar face.

The General, who called Poe into her office under the guise of another debrief to tell him this, is putting a tentative hand on his shoulder.

“He’s alright, I’ve been told. The doctors are giving him time to adjust, and it’s likely you won’t be allowed to see him for another couple of days.”

Poe takes a deep breath. He can do this. Force, he’s only known Finn for like three days, not counting the time spent by the man’s bedside, but he owes him.

“I understand. Thank you.”

Leia smiles, then, as she sees Poe return to his reasonable self, and gives Poe a vigorous pat on the shoulder. Poe almost flinches. He keeps forgetting the General used to take fighting lessons from the Aldeeranian guard, and still practises weekly.

“You’ve done good work on those scouting missions, Dameron. I don’t want you to think that I think you’re going to go bananas just because I tell you that your friend’s back awake. I know you won’t jeopardise the mission. But I didn’t want to burden you with something when you can’t do anything about it.”

“I’m really not holding a grudge here.”

Poe is being sincere, but despite what Leia said, he’s itching to check out medbay right now. Who knows, maybe they will let him see Finn after all.

“I’m glad to hear that.”

Leia moves back behind her desk, and Poe’s gaze falls on the picture of herself and Han she keeps there. He’s never seen it before. It’s odd, the General never struck him as sentimental person, but then again, everybody needs a little comfort now and then. Poe imagines lesser people would have crumbled under the strain, but Leia remains steadfast as ever.

“Well, get moving,” Leia scolds him, and Poe remembers his manners. He salutes, and then exits the office in quick strides. It doesn’t take him long to find his way to the medbay.

The doors to Finn’s room are sealed firmly, even when Poe tries his special override code that is reserved for higher-ups and that he was given to check up on teammates who were injured in combat. It should probably comfort him to know that the medics are taking Finn’s privacy and recovery so seriously, but it also annoys him a little that he can’t be there to make sure that Finn is fine himself.

He gives the door a little hopeful rattle, but when it still doesn’t move, he sighs and makes his way to the barracks.

When he gets back to his room, it’s to find BB-8 and Jess hanging out and exchanging dirty jokes in binary.

“Hey, how did the meeting with the General go?”

Jess’ pilot suit is hanging from her top bunk, still damp from the wash she must have given it while Poe was gone. The shower is on, and Poe assumes it’s either Snap or Niem. He hopes whoever it is finishes soon so he can get a shower himself and then sleep until the doctors will let him see Finn.

“Fine,” Poe says distractedly, and BB-8 beeps out something about Poe not looking like himself. Jess nods in agreement.

Poe can’t believe he’s being subjected to soul-searching by one of his best friends and his _droid_ , which is supposed to have his back.

“She told me Finn woke up, but the doctors won’t let anyone see him yet.”

“Okay… _kriff_.”

Jess covers her mouth with both hands. He’s given his bunkmates bits and pieces of what happened on his escape and Finn’s role in it, and the rest they must have been smart enough to piece together themselves. Also, BB-8 probably talked. The little traitor.

Poe sits down on his bunk and breathes for a moment, then gives in and just lays all the way down. His back aches from hours spent in the cramped space of the cockpit and the additional bathroom cleaning duty today. He could really use a hot shower.

“Hey, but he’s like, _fine_ , right?”

Poe looks up to see Jess fix him with a concerned expression, her eyebrows drawn together. BB-8 voices its concern in a series of whistles.

“Yeah, he’s fine, the General says. Just a little bit disoriented, but I don’t want to imagine how I’d feel after two weeks in a coma.”

“Good,” Jess nods.

BB-8 rolls over to Poe’s bunk and bumps against the side until Poe holds out a hand and pats the droid’s metal hull. “Yeah, I’m looking forward to seeing him, too, Bee-Bee.”

Jess smiles. “Okay, seeing as that is kind of a special occasion, it’s my treat for dinner. I’ll see what I can scrounge up at the commissary, yes?”

“You’re a gift, Jess.”

“Don’t thank me too soon, you’re on potato-peeling duty. See you in the kitchen in half an hour?”

Enough time for Poe to take a shower. Also he should message Rey that Finn has woken up. If she even receives the messages he’s sending.

“Great.”

He gives Jess a thumbs-up and then decides to close his eyes for a minute before Snap or Niem emerge from the shower. He just wants to rest his eyes.

\--

Finn calms slowly in the next three days.

The rotating shifts of nurses help him ease into human contact, and he begins to feel like he fits into his body again, which doesn’t even make any sense but that’s how he feels. His back hurts, a pain that echoes down into his left leg, but apart from that, bacta has healed the cuts and burns from his lightsaber battle.

The doctors tell him that he’ll have to go through physical therapy to get back to full strength. The nurses assure him he’ll hate it, but that it’s necessary if he wants to walk properly again. So far, Finn hasn’t even tried getting up, but he has done some physical exercises lying down. These were excruciating and told him that apparently being in a coma for two weeks will fuck up your muscles.

On the third day, Doctor Gareb comes back with good news.

They’re Finn’s favourite, because they always take some extra time to answer his questions, which helps take the stress of his mind. Also, they come from a planet under the control of the First Order, as Finn finds out on the second day, and so he feels a sense of kinship towards them. Both of them escaped less-than-ideal circumstances, it seems.

“If you feel like it, we’ll let you see Mister Dameron tomorrow. My colleagues and me agree that your recovery is more than promising, and we see no reason to keep you isolated any longer. That is, of course, only if you feel up to it.”

“Do I…” Finn hoists himself into somewhat more of a sitting position, which is always less good for his lower back but takes some of the strain off his neck. “Do I feel ready? Force yes!”

He hadn’t expected to see Poe so soon after the sombre faces of the doctors and the reprimands about him having to take it slow. It’s kind of the best news he received since waking up from a coma and not being dead.

“Well, then, I’m glad.” Doctor Gareb pulls out their clipboard and goes to read some things off the med-screen. “He’s been quite the hassle for the medical staff to handle as well. He kept asking to see you, even when we assured him it was only for you best.”

Finn chuckles. That sounds so much like Poe.

“Now, if you don’t mind, Finn, I’d like you to sit up and try putting some weight on your legs, okay?”

Finn swallows. “Um… okay…”

Doctor Gareb gives him an encouraging smile. “Nothing fancy. Just to give you a feeling about how you are right now.”

Finn nods and takes a deep breath, then uses his arms to push himself up all the way. He can feel the strain on his lower back, but it’s not quite as bad as he expected. It’s mostly muscles protesting about lying down for too long, and before he knows it, he’s sitting with his legs dangling off the bed.

“Very good!” Doctor Gareb exclaims. “Now, I’ll give you a hand with the next part. Dek told me your left leg feels worse? We’ll start with the right, then.”

They offer a hand, and Finn takes it, inching forward on the bed until the soles of his bare feet hit the ground. The duracrete feels cold but smooth. Finn takes another deep breath, and then begins to put weight on his feet, using both but favouring the right.

At first, he feels like both legs will just give in immediately, and he grips Doctor Gareb’s hand tighter, but then muscle memory kicks in and he is standing. He whoops, then, pulling up his arms and regretting it instantly as hot pain flares up in his back. He flinches and falls back down on the bed.

“Easy there,” Doctor Gareb scolds, and Finn carefully lowers his arms again.

“Oops,” he mutters.

“Still,” Doctor Gareb marks something down on their clipboard, “That was very good. I’ll put you down for some light physical therapy tomorrow.”

\--

Poe is on edge then entire morning.

Poe is on edge when he wakes up from Snap’s alarm at five am, and then he can’t fall asleep again even though he isn’t allowed to see Finn until ten. He’s on edge during breakfast, and Jess teases him through it mercilessly. He’s on edge in the shower, and he catches himself worrying over the right clothes to wear for a visit to fucking medbay when he realises just how much of a routine those visits with Finn have become, and how much he doesn’t want to lose them.

He doesn’t even know what he’s afraid of, really, because Finn will probably be delighted to have him back, but he can’t help but worry anyway. What if Finn decides he needs some time to himself? Poe would respect that and all, but he’s pretty sure he couldn’t help but feel a tiny bit crushed, too.

When a quarter to ten rolls around, BB-8 comes to inform him that it’s never seen its master in such a state of distress outside of battle situations. Poe gives it a pat on the head and a weary sigh.

“I know, buddy.”

BB-8 lets out a whistle that doesn’t really translate to anything but sounds way too knowing for Poe’s taste. It’s a sad life when your droid is making fun of you, Poe decides.

He makes his way to medbay with BB-8 trailing behind him, and then feels his heart doing a little silly dance when he arrives at the glass doors and sees Finn on crutches making his shaky way through the lobby. He refrains from slapping a hand across his mouth to stop any embarrassing noises from escaping. He can do this. It’s just the dude that saved his life, and then continued to be the most selfless, good-looking, _happy_ …

BB-8 rolls forward, and the doors slide open, and Finn sees the droid and almost drops his crutches then and there.

The nurse that rushes forward scolds Poe for it, and then casts a dark look at Finn. “We don’t want you to fall again.”

“Again?” Poe asks, and momentarily forgets that he is supposed to be happy about seeing Finn awake again. “What does she mean by ‘again’, Finn?”

Finn casts the nurse a slightly desperate look. “Can we drop the subject?”

And then it occurs to Poe again that this is Finn, good-natured, slightly goofy _Finn_ , who is alive and well and Poe rushes forward to engulf him in a hug that would have done a Sarlacc proud. “Man, I am _so_ glad to see you.”

Poe is kind of holding up all of Finn’s weight because, he realises, Finn can’t yet stand on his own legs but the crutches are all but useless at the angle Poe is hugging him. Poe can’t bring himself to mind. Finn is warm, and he can feel Finn’s heart beat under his shirt, Finn is breathing, and Finn is smiling into the crook of Poe’s neck.

“Hey there.”

The nurse clicks her tongue. “I would appreciate it if you could leave my patient in one piece, Dameron…”

Poe should probably be slightly ashamed to say that most of the nurses here know him by name, either because he came by on his own accord or because he was busy visiting friends and squadmates, and they’re not particularly fond of him. He’s known for being notorious, a pain in the ass, and always walking around when he’s supposed to lie down and rest, and on top of that he’s also known for charming his way out of it.

“Right, sorry.”

Poe carefully lets go of Finn, who manages to put all his weight back on the crutches and then accompany Poe down a short hallway into the room where they kept him while he was still comatose. It’s a slow walk, but Finn is determined to make it on his own and Poe is not about to stop him. BB-8 follows them at their heels.

Once they’re seated, Finn can’t stop looking at Poe.

“You’re alive. You’re _fine_ ,” he says, and Poe has to laugh.

“Of course I’m alright, buddy.”

“Dude, you have no idea.” Finn runs a hand over his face. “They wouldn’t tell me _anything_! Where is Rey? What happened to Starkiller base? Is Ren still alive?”

“Whoa there!” Poe raises his hands. “Okay, slow down, we’ll go through this step by step.”

Finn smiles and nods, and Poe has to keep himself from reaching out and touching him. He’s so beautiful with his face brightened by a wide smile and the way he’s definitely not comatose anymore.

“Okay. So where’s Rey? Is she coming to see me, too?”

Poe grimaces. “She’s alive, and she’s fine, but she’s not coming to see you anytime soon I guess. She left a week or two ago.”

“Oh.” Finn’s shoulders sag. “Left for where?”

Poe struggles to keep it all concise so as to not overwhelm Finn while still giving him the relevant information.

“The map to Luke Skywalker. R2D2 woke up and completed it, and they sent Rey off with Chewbacca to find him. Apparently she’s some kind of Jedi legacy and she’s going to have to train. I have to admit, I didn’t understand half of that stuff, but after you got knocked out by Ren she used the Force to kick his ass. It’s classified, which means the whole base is still talking about what happened.”

Finn’s eyes are wide as he tries to take it all in. Poe wants to go slow but doesn’t even know how to explain everything that happened in a manner that is not entirely overwhelming. It’s just so much that some days he can’t even believe it himself.

“So she found Luke?”

“I hope. We haven’t heard from her in a while.”

Finn doesn’t say anything to that, and Poe feels the need to add something. “I’m sure she’s fine.”

“I think she is,” Finn muses, and Poe doesn’t ask how he knows.

“So can you walk me through the battle again? I’m kind of fuzzy on how it all went down…”

“Well, I wasn’t there for most of what happened with you, but in short it went like this: you got in, lowered the shields, found Rey, found Ren, Ren killed Solo, you took on Ren while Rey was knocked out, then you got knocked out and Rey kicked Ren’s ass. Oh, and my squad managed to deliver the killing blow on Starkiller base. Then Chewbacca got you out.”

“So Ren is dead?”

Finn sounds cautiously hopeful.

“We don’t know.” Poe sighs. “The odds were certainly against him, but those dark types have a way of coming back to bite you in the ass.”

Finn chuckles dryly. Poe is stuck on watching his face go through a range of emotions in his retelling of the battle. Finn is so open about them that Poe wonders how he ever got through being a Stormtrooper. Or maybe now Finn just finally feels like he can let them all out, and doesn’t see the need to restrain himself.

Whatever the case, Poe finds it beautiful.

“And Solo is really dead.”

Poe’s chest constricts again, just like it had at every reminder of Solo’s death since he first heard about it. He hurts for General Organa and what she’s been through, and the toll it took on her family. Somehow, she always seems to end up on her own, the last woman standing.

“Yeah, he’s dead.”

Poe’s mouth is dry, and he has to try a few times to swallow around the lump in his throat. He’s had three weeks to work through this, but for Finn, it must all still feel fresh and raw. Poe leans forward to place a gentle hand on the back of Finn’s hand. It feels warm and smooth under his.

“ _Fierfek_ ,” Finn mutters, and Poe has to suppress a grin at the sudden colourful Hutt curse. It would seem the Stormtrooper education allows for picking up _some_ useful things.

Finn, however, casts an insecure glance at Poe. “So he’s Solo’s… and Leia’s, I mean, the General’s… Kylo Ren is their _kid_?”

Poe remembers how he felt when he first found out, and how he’d finally had the courage to ask the General about it. He’s not sure he understands the pull of the dark side any better now that he’s come face to face with Ren. When he first saw him on Jakku, he tried to approach him like Solo’s and Organa’s son, but he quickly came to the conclusion that there was nothing left of Ben.

“Yeah, he is.”

“Dude, that’s messed up,” Finn says.

“Tell me about it.”

“I never knew,” Finn continues, “All this time I was with the First Order, there wasn’t even a _whisper_ …”

“Well, I imagine he really hates his family. Luke Skywalker as your uncle doesn’t exactly scream _Dark Overlord_.”

Poe snorts and leans back, taking his hand off Finn’s. He used to wonder how someone could grow up with powers like Ren’s and decide to use them for bad. Poe refuses to believe this is anything but a choice. Everything in life is determined by choices.

Finn shakes his head. “It’s so much. All the stories, and suddenly they’re true… Honestly, for every thing I was dead sure was a myth, another one turned out to be true. The Force is real, and the Jedi are real, and Han Solo really existed? He gave me a blaster once? It was awesome?”

Poe is again struck by the realisation of how much Finn has yet to discover, and he realises he is looking forward to being there for these discoveries.

BB-8 suddenly gives off a shrill whistle that sounds less alarming and more enthusiastic, and sends Poe laughing.

Finn frowns. “I still can’t understand it. What is it saying?”

Poe reaches down to pat the head of the droid. “Bee-Bee’s just very excited about finally having met R2D2. With R2D2 being actually… awake, you know.”

BB-8 nods enthusiastically.

“I think it likes you,” Poe says.

“I think it doesn’t hate me as much as it used to,” Finn says, “You know, Bee-Bee zapped me when we first met. It thought I stole your jacket.”

“You kind of _did_ steal my jacket,” Poe jokes, “But that’s okay. I can see when somebody looks better in my stuff, and I have to hand it to you there, you totally rocked the jacket.”

Finn doesn’t even know what to say to that, it’s so sweet. Poe is grinning from just looking at Finn opening his mouth and then closing it again. It makes Poe want to compliment him all over again, just to watch that face one more time.

“Which reminds me, I brought a holovid. Rey and me played you a lot of those while you were in bacta, but I don’t suppose you remember. If you want to, we can watch it? I don’t have to be up in the air until three.”

Poe rubs his neck and motions towards his coat pocket, where he packed the holo in a snap decision this morning. Finn looks delighted.

“Hey, that’s so cool! We never watched holovids, unless you count the boring educational type. _Fifty kinds of camouflage in jungle territory_ …”

“I think I saw that ‘vid…” Poe laughs, fumbling for the disc. It’s a good thing the private rooms come with multifunctional holoscreens, despite this being a military base and all. The doctors normally use these for running diagnostics and reading large statistical data, but Poe knows how to repurpose them quite well by now. Just another testament to the fact that he spent entirely too much time in the medbay in the last weeks.

He puts on the vid, and then helps Finn get comfortable in his bed. Finn still moves delicately, but he seems determined to make it work. Poe gets comfortable in one of the chairs, and they get lost in a modern retelling of the classical story of a world-weary man trying to make it home to his family against all odds. It’s not one of Poe’s favourites, but it’s quiet with a sweet ending, and although Finn is asleep by the end of it, Poe gets the feeling he enjoyed it.

\--

That evening, there’s a party going on with some of the Sullustans on base. The various regional subgroups or different species often host celebrations amongst themselves for holidays on their homeworlds or when it’s just somebody’s birthday, namesday or otherwise special day, and when you’re Poe Dameron, you get invited to most of them.

So Poe is hanging out with the Sullustans, one of who is his squadmate Niem, and Jess, who he dragged along with the excuse that he still owed her several drinks. The truth is that he’s dreading to be alone right now, and Niem doesn’t count in that case, because when he’s with other Sullustans he tends to get horribly shitfaced and then insults Poe’s hair by aggressively complimenting it. It’s weird, and sounds somewhat like _I generally think the protein filaments extending from human skin are weird but I recognise that yours arrange themselves in an aesthetically pleasing manner, especially in the head region_.

“How is Finn?” Jess asks after three drinks and Poe challenging one of the Sullustans – Tam, his name is – to a drinking contest. It must be really obvious that he’s trying to distract himself.

“He’s fine, he’s good,” Poe is quick to assure her, “Just stressed, is all. Overwhelmed.”

“Well, that’s no wonder. With all that he’s been through.” Jess gives off a noncommittal grunt. “Tell me when he’s well enough for a drink or two, because I would _love_ to buy the guy who kicked Kylo Ren’s ass a drink.”

“It was actually Rey who did most of the work, you know,” Poe says, although he can’t help the little flicker of pride at Jess talking so highly of Finn. He’s coming to realise he’s afraid that people will reject Finn because he used to be a Stormtrooper.

“Hey, been there, done that. I already offered her a drink, but I think she wanted to be left alone. Can’t blame her, too.”

“She’s a good person,” Poe says, suddenly lost in the image of Rey next to him in medbay in the days before she left. He completely misses Jess giving him a _look_ of sorts.

“Poe, I swear to the Force, how you keep getting yourself into these situations I have no idea,” she mutters.

“What situations?”

“At the heart of the action, and living to tell the tale? Ring a bell?” Jess shakes her head. “You flew an X-Wing into a building at sublight.”

“It was a hectic few days, alright?”

It’s not like he’s trying to be the centre of attention. He’d gladly leave that to the others, but he has a very strong drive to do the things that need doing. That’s what usually ends up putting him in the spotlight.

“You know; my family calls me sometimes. _That Dameron fella sure is someone, isn’t he, Jess?_ ” she says, imitating the voice of an elderly woman. “My sister wants your autograph.”

“You’re making this up.”

Poe honestly can’t tell from her face. Jess plays it serious for another minute before she cracks up. “Okay, no, they don’t. But they would, if they heard half the stories that are circulating about you on base.”

“Most of them aren’t even true. Can’t we talk about something else? Don’t you have a promotion upcoming?”

“You’re terrible at this, Dameron.” Jess playfully swats his arm. “Be glad you have your looks, because that Finn fella is not about to be wooed by you for your smooth tongue.”

“What are you even talking about?” Poe sputters. “I’m not _wooing_ anyone.”

“No. Of course you aren’t. Forgive me.” Jess nods solemnly and looks down at her drink. Poe realises it was foolish to let himself relax when she continues. “You’ll just follow him around until he takes a hint. You’re just so damn _nice_ , Dameron.”

“Don’t I outrank you? Couldn’t I just fire you for tonight?” Poe sighs wearily.

“You know you love me,” Jess says.

“Unfortunately I do.”

Poe takes a long sip of his drink, which is exactly the time it takes for Tam to come back to him about that drinking contest. Jess just winks at him as if to say _I’m watching you_ and lets him go, and Poe spends the night getting thoroughly shitfaced with Niem and the other Sullustans. When he stumbles back into his room later that night, Jess is already happily asleep in her bunk, but there’s a note on his pillow in her frankly terrible handwriting.

_You’re a great team leader and a_  
really good friend, Dameron. You  
deserve some good things in your life.

\--

Finn is discharged from medbay a week later. He can walk on his own now, though he still needs a cane to move around longer distances, and his therapy schedule is, quite frankly, hell. He is assigned a room that’s empty except for him, although there is one more bunk waiting to be assigned. Finn never had a room of his own.

At first, he’s not quite sure what to do with himself. Everybody on base seems to have something to do. When they’re not on missions against the First Order, they have maintenance duty or are assigned cleaning shifts, sit in briefings or meetings with their teams or hang out in the rec room. Everything is somewhere between busy and just utterly _chaotic_ , and it overwhelms Finn. He unpacks his few possessions – a torn leather jacket that used to belong to Poe, and the set of clothes he used to wear under his Stormtrooper armour – and puts that away, and then he’s done unpacking, so he decides to find some food.

He moves slowly with the cane, which gives him a lot of time to take in his surroundings. It seems that people here are always on the move, even in the barracks, where one or two beings had to dodge Finn in the last minute to avoid a head-on collision. And yet, even though the base seems impossibly large, mostly everything is still in comfortable walking distance. A testimony to the fact, Finn muses, that the Resistance really isn’t that all-powerful, and that even this legendary force is working under the constraints of money and manpower.

The mess is a bustle of activity, even more so than the corridors. Here, beings of all kinds, are enjoying the kinds of standard rations that are the only feasible solution to keeping these many different species sufficiently fed. Finn picks up some of the rations for humans and then finds a quiet spot with his back to the wall where he can keep an eye on things while not being the focus of everything. He doesn’t know that a couple of weeks ago, Rey picked the exact same spot to wait for Poe Dameron, but Poe still remembers it.

“Is this a thing between you two? Do you like the creeper seat at the far end of the mess that much, or am I just not famous enough to need this seat?”

Poe drops down next to Finn out of nowhere, as if he sensed Finn was going to be here at this specific time. Finn has stopped questioning Poe Dameron’s presence in his life and started accepting it as the kind of gift bantha whose mouth shouldn’t be inspected to closely. Although Finn never understood that phrase – a bantha’s mouth should never be inspected up close, whether that bantha was a gift or not. They were large, terrifying animals.

“I just don’t want too much attention,” Finn says, “Who knows what people will think of me?”

Poe looks him up and down like he’s making a serious assessment. “They’ll think ‘ _Wow, look at this brave man who fought Kylo Ren, up and walking again so soon! Truly the hero we should all aspire to be_ ’, and then keep walking. Maybe they’ll ask you for an autograph.”

Finn blushes. It’s a good thing Poe probably can’t tell, but Finn can feel the blood rushing to his cheeks. He inspects his rations more closely, so he won’t have to face Poe’s smile. In his experience, looking directly at Poe smiling is like looking directly into the sun, only instead of making him blind it makes Finn’s cheeks turn warm and makes him stammer out really stupid things.

“You know what I mean,” he says, “I was a Stormtrooper. They have every right not to trust me.”

“Hey, they also have every right to realise you’re a person, and as a person you made the decision to not put up with that First Order _bantha poodoo_ anymore.”

Poe puts a careful hand on Finn’s shoulder, and Finn watches it almost in slow-motion. He leans into the touch just the tiniest bit. Poe’s hand is a warm weight on his shoulder, pressing briefly before pulling away.

“How did you know I was here anyway?”

“I did the math. Went to find you in medbay after my debrief, but they told me you’d been released about an hour ago, so I thought you’d probably want to find some food. How are you liking the rations?”

Apparently, Finn makes a face he doesn’t even realise, and Poe laughs.

“Rey said they actually tasted good to her. I don’t know if she was pulling my tail, I honestly can’t tell with her sometimes, but I invited her over for dinner anyway. You should come sometime.”

“She liked those fruits we ate with Maz Kanata’s place,” Finn says, “I don’t know what they were, but they were really tasty.”

“Fresh fruit, huh?” Poe thinks for a moment, absent-mindedly scratching his chin. “It’s difficult, but I’ll see what I can get. It might take them a few days. How does Sunday sound to you?”

“For what?” Finn asks.

“Dinner? Lunch? Whenever you are free.”

“Oh,” Finn says, “Well, I don’t really have anything to do at the moment besides physical therapy, so I’m free… almost all of the time.”

Poe grins. “Great. I’ll check my schedule, and I’ll let you know.”

Finn smiles, too, because Poe’s smile is sort of infectious, and then devotes his attention to finishing his lunch, while Poe just… hangs around, alternating between watching Finn and watching the rest of the mess. A few people walk past and greet Poe, but nobody pays Finn any particular good attention, good or bad. They just greet him like a friend of Poe’s and move on.

They sit in quiet after a while after Finn finishes his food, then Poe slaps his palms onto his legs. “Alright, I have to go. I’m on maintenance duty this week. I’ll come by your room later this evening if you’re okay with that?”

Finn shrugs. “Actually, I’ve got nothing to do now. Can’t I come with you? I won’t be much help, but I can cheer from the sidelines.”

Poe smiles as if Finn just made him the greatest present ever. “Of course, buddy! Yeah, that would be cool!”

\--

BB-8 greets Finn enthusiastically when they reach the hangar where the X-Wings are kept safely away from D’Quarian weather. Finn kneels down to pat the little droid’s head, and Poe watches them with a grin until he’s called away by a Sullustan technician. Straightening up takes Finn considerably more effort then kneeling down, but he manages. BB-8 trails after him to where Poe is taking a wrench to the side of an X-Wing.

“Something got stuck here,” he explains exasperatedly when he notices that Finn is quietly laughing at him, “I just need to.”

He stops to give the X-Wing another whack. “I just need to get it lose so I can put it back properly.”

BB-8 chirps something which appears to be another criticism of Poe’s methods, if Poe’s annoyed huff is anything to go by. “You don’t even have opposable thumbs, Bee-Bee. You don’t get a say in this.”

Finn spots a couple of boxes that are stacked next to the X-Wings. He stops the Sullustan and points towards the boxes. “Is it okay if I sit there?”

“Sure,” the Sullustan says, then hurries off towards another one of the fighters. Finn sits down with BB-8 at his side.

For the next hours, he watches Poe make his way from ship to ship, running calibrations, checking the hardware, fixing the odd little problem. It strikes Finn how unique the ships all look from up close. You can see that the pilots care for them deeply, that they’re not just standard war machines but well-maintained ships that are essential to the success of so many different missions. It’s no wonder the pilots are a close-knit bunch, with how much time they spend in the air.

Other pilots come and go, asking Poe for advice on technical matters or, on more than one occasion, complaining that he messed with their settings during recalibrations. Poe takes it with a good-natured laugh but listens intently to all their remarks. Finn has no doubt that he is cataloguing them for later, as reference for improvement.

The more Finn watches Poe Dameron, the more wonderful he turns out to be, and Finn means that in a quite literal sense of the word. This is a very different world from the First Order.

“So this is what you do between missions?” Finn asks later, when Poe is out of breath and full of grease and scorch marks from getting too up close and personal with X-Wing parts that have the tendency to spontaneously combust.

“Not every day. Sometimes I do inventory. Sometimes I clean stuff. We rotate. There’s a rooster. You’ll probably be up on it in no time, once your back is fixed.”

He gives Finn’s upper back a gentle tap, to make his point. Finn is amazed by the versatility of the people here on base. Everybody seems to accept their duties as an integral part of keeping everything running smoothly, and nobody complains about boring jobs that should be below their paygrade. It’s such a nice change from the charged and ambitious military environment he grew up in.

Warfare here, he realises, seems a cooperative effort.

“Until then, I’ll just follow you around,” Finn jokes, “It’s not like I have anything better to do.”

“Hey, you can join me whenever you like!” Leave it to Poe to immediately make this a serious offer again. “You’re not a bother. I really enjoy having you around.”

At this point, Finn has to assume that Poe can somehow tell he’s blushing and is immensely enjoying making Finn blush. There’s no other explanation for it.

Poe heads to the shower in his room, and Finn waits in his own with the promise to not go anywhere until Poe picks him up. They end up staying in Finn’s room, watching another holovid until Poe realises with horror how late it’s become and that he has an early flight drill scheduled tomorrow. Finn laughs as he watches Poe frantically assemble his stuff and bid his hasty goodnight, and he is still smiling as he heads to bed.

\--

A large part of being squadron leader unfortunately also involves paperwork, which Poe tackles with all the determination he can muster.

Which is to say, he is several months behind and the General will have his ass for it. Finn is laughing when Poe shows him the stack that is left to do.

“So what is this, exactly?” Finn asks, as Poe draws up the first paper and scans it with narrowed eyes.

“Mostly mission reports from my pilots. Maintenance logs. My _own_ reports that just need spellchecking before I can file them away.”

Finn grabs one from the top of the pile before hesitating with the paper already in hand. “Can I…?”

“Sure.” Poe shrugs. “With what you’ve been through, I doubt you still need security clearance.”

Finn huffs. “Yeah, that’d be hilarious.”

Poe turns back to the report on his desk, which is Reena’s retelling of her mission to Rodia. While her style is compelling, Poe does find it hard to concentrate on the technical details while Finn next to him is… actually not doing all that much. Mostly just existing, with the added bonus that’s he’s doing it in the general vicinity of Poe. Apparently that’s enough to shoot his concentration to hell. He makes a resigned noise and tries to focus on reading.

“So that’s the only perk of leadership you get? A buttload of paperwork?” Finn asks after a while, having put down the report back on Poe’s stack, which has not reduced in size all that much.

“Sometimes I get to hang out with important figures of the Resistance,” Poe says, like he’s describing a job position, “Become squad leader! Hang out with General Organa! Engage in life-or-death-situations and then show up for celebratory drinks!”

“Fly a TIE-fighter,” Finn offers, and Poe nods, “Right, we can’t forget about narrow escapes from Star Destroyers using tech we’re completely unfamiliar with. Such a perk of leadership!”

He looks at Finn, whose mouth is turned up into a lopsided grin, and cracks up. He’s so glad he can laugh about it, now that Finn is back awake.

Finn becomes suddenly serious.

“I never did thank you for what you did there. Not everybody would have trusted me like you did.”

“Hey.” Poe leans forward across the table and catches Finn’s hand in his. “You don’t have to thank me. I’m just glad you’re here.”

With the look Finn gives him at that, Poe just wants to disappear before he turns beet red. Sometimes he is a little more honest than he would like, and Finn looks so honestly _surprised_ every time… It hurts Poe, but it also really makes him want to hold on to Finn and never let him go. And he’s never quite sure how Finn feels about him.

“Anyway.” Poe clears his throat. “I was reading this report…”

\--

“How are you a pilot and not a five-star cook?”

Sometimes Finn only realises he might have said something inappropriate after it leaves his mouth, but this time he’s pretty sure what he said can only be taken as a compliment. He has to turn around to check when Poe just goes completely silent, anyway.

“Poe?”

Poe shakes his head. “Sorry.” He laughs. “Well, I guess it’s not a family-approved career. I sort of had pilot written on my cradle.”

Poe is standing in the communal kitchen on his floor, a kitschy apron tied around his neck and a pan in his hand that he’s using to fill up his own plate with some kind of fried wheat with vegetables. It’s the third time he’s cooked for Finn since Finn woke up, and Finn is beginning to feel spoiled. Also he has terrible table manners, but Poe’s food is usually so good that he can’t wait to try it until Poe is seated as well.

“In any case…” Finn points towards his plate. “This is amazing!”

“Are you talking about Poe’s cooking?”

Jessika Pava, one of the pilots under Poe’s command, sticks her head through the kitchen doors. Finn met her a day or two ago, when he’d accompanied Poe to the airstrip before he left for a quick recon mission. “I _knew_ I smelled your fry-up all the way down the hall. Are there leftovers? Am I too late?”

Poe looks down at his plate, at the pan in his hand, and then back at Jessika. “Alright, come over. There’s some left.”

Jess punches the air. “Great.”

When Poe rolls his eyes she points at him accusingly. “What? You’ve been neglecting your poor roommates all week! It’s not my fault I have to resort to drastic measures if I don’t want to eat dried rations all the time!”

Finn looks between her and Poe and is overcome by a sudden feeling of longing. Not for anything in particular, but the easy camaraderie he sees between the two friends makes him feel warm inside. It’s a fuzzy, silly, sentimental kind of feeling that makes it hard to swallow around the next bite of his food, especially when Poe looks back at him with a bright smile.

“What can I say, I had excellent company.”

Jessika side-eyes Finn with definite interest. “I can only imagine.”

Finn, once again, feels the blood rush to his cheeks. Half the base seems to assume that Poe is flirting with him, but in Finn’s experience, Poe is just that nice to everyone and it’s Finn who can’t keep his stupid crush under control. Also, he still feels empty inside when he thinks about Rey, and where does that leave him?

Poe nods towards the table. “Sit with us. Where are Snap and Niem? They can join us, there’s plenty left. If Finn can live without a second helping today?”

He looks at Finn like he might genuinely expect Finn to object. Finn shakes his head quickly. “No, no, that’s okay!”

“Niem is stuck doing inventory for spare parts. Last I saw him, he was hunting down regulators for R2 units.”

“A moment of silence for Niem, please,” Poe requests, and both Poe and Jess solemnly close their eyes for a moment and nod.

“Okay, I’ll get Snap,” Jess says, then, and heads out again back down the hallway. Poe fills two more plates with steaming hot food and sits down next to Finn, maybe a little more closely than would strictly be necessary, even with four people at the table. Finn tries to think nothing of it.

He takes another bite of his food. “Have I mentioned how good this is?”

Poe huffs out a laugh, and it’s pleased in that quiet way, and he’s genuinely smiling at Finn with such wonder that it almost hurts to look. Except Finn can’t stop looking.

“Go ahead, mention it a couple of times more. Jess always complains that I burn it. Could you maybe say it one more time when she’s back? Just for good measure?”

Finn elbows him good-naturedly. “Take a compliment, flyboy.”

“Do not, under any circumstances, compliment Dameron!” Snap’s voice echoes in from the hallway. “His ego is like one of those inflatable flight wests.”

Snap and Jess round the corner, and Poe makes a face at them. “You are a menace, Snap.”

“Only for you, Dameron.” Snap makes a kissy face at him. “Now, where’s that food you’ve been withholding from us?”

It’s easier than expected. Finn has sort of met most of Poe’s friends by now – either during the crisis meeting before the attack on Starkiller base of which he still remembers less than he wants to admit, or in the last week and a half while hanging out with Poe. They all seem to accept Finn’s presence naturally, without questioning his loyalties or anything.

Poe and the other two pilots bicker a lot, about the others’ piloting skills, X-Wing maintenance and pilot suit hygiene. It’s obvious they’ve known each other for a long time and trust each other, and Finn is mostly quiet while just observing the show of friendship in front of him. By the end of the evening, Finn is half shoved into Poe because Jessika ended up taking more and more space on the other side of him, with her feet up on one of the remaining chairs. She is re-enacting some of her more dramatic missions with two napkins and a flashlight.

“I hope Rey brings back Luke Skywalker,” she says out of nowhere, “I would _really_ like to meet Luke Skywalker.”

Poe just huffs, and Jessika reaches above Finn’s head to lightly flick at Poe’s hair. “Hey, just because your idol is practically living on base. Didn’t you have a poster of Leia Organa hanging above your bed growing up?”

Finn looks at Poe, half expecting him to immediately deny it, but instead he grumbles something and avoids both Jessika’s and Finn’s eyes. Snap just laughs.

“I met Antilles once,” he says, “It was sort of underwhelming. Not on his part, mind, I’m sure he was everything the stories made him out to be, but I couldn’t get a single word out straight. It was terrible.”

Everybody laughs, including Snap.

“Okay, but if Rey brings back Skywalker, how would that even work out? For all we know, the guy has been living in complete exile for the last years.” Poe sits up a little bit straighter. “I mean, can you imagine him getting in line for food rations in the mess? _Hello and could I have a little Force milk shake with that? Have a nice day?_ ”

Jess snorts. “There’s no such thing as a Force milk shake.”

“No, but it’d be weird,” Snap agrees, “With all the trouble we went through to find him. I imagine he won’t like company all that much.”

“Okay, but is he going to have to share a room with his sister like when they were twelve or…?” asks Jessica.

“They grew up on separate planets, Jess, they never shared a room,” Poe argues.

“Yes, but if they _had_ grown up together…”

“Imagine having a Force-sensitive sibling,” Snap huffs.

“It’ll be weird enough when he gets here,” Poe decides, “Let’s not break our heads trying to figure out what it’ll be like.”

“We’ll have Rey back, though,” Finn says quietly, and looks over at Poe quickly enough to catch something on his face that might be longing, too.

“Yeah,” Poe says dryly, “That’ll be great.”

Finn gets sort of stuck on that thought for the rest of the evening, trying to picture Rey with them. He could finally get to know her properly, not while running for their lives. He’s only been awake for a little over ten days and there are already so many things he wants to show her. He hopes she’ll return soon.

\--

Finn tries to sign up for the rooster the next morning, but apparently, news about his health are general knowledge on base.

“Sorry, son,” the elderly Cerean says when he tried to submit his application, “But word from the General has it you’re not supposed to be considered fit for work yet.”

The administration office is a tiny appendage to the command centre, with huge schedules on holoscreens projected onto the walls, which give the place its own eerie light. The Cerean – the name tag on her desk reads Ka Shael – looks pale in the bright blue light, appearing smaller than most of her species the way she is slumped behind her desk, but gives off a feeling of competence nonetheless. She has to, Finn reasons, if she runs all this by herself.

Finn must look crushed, because she gives him a sympathetic pat on the arm. “Hey, if I were you, I’d take my time to recover. Really focus on regaining my strength.”

Finn doesn’t say that he wants to work because he feels like even if he doesn’t get on Poe’s nerves now, he will in the near future. He just has to find something to occupy himself with.

“It’s fine,” he says instead, “Just wanted to make myself useful, is all.”

The Cerean gives him a wink. “If half of what I hear is true, you’ve already made yourself more than useful, boy.”

Finn manages a small smile and goes off to find the gym, or what passes for a gym here on base, for his physical therapy sessions. They always leave him feeling worse than before, but Finn can tell they’re doing wonders for his back. A week ago he could barely move without a cane. Now he just keeps it around in case his left leg randomly decides to give out, which still happens at least once or twice a day depending on how far he pushes himself.

His urge to do something doesn’t just come from the fact that he is afraid of getting on Poe’s nerves, he realises while a med-droid is instructing him in some stretching exercise. It’s also the fact that Rey is out there, pursuing some previously unknown destiny, and he… well. He’s not sure where he fits in this story now. The way he sees it, his part in the action is over now – not that he wants to be the centre of attention, but it would be nice to feel like he has a purpose again. Even if that purpose is just sorting spare parts into colour-coordinated piles. That’d be a start, at least.

He leaves physical therapy feeling sore all over in the worst ways, and slowly makes his way back to his room, still depressingly empty and lacking any kind of personality. He should find something to decorate, he thinks, like he’s seen it in Poe’s room. Maybe a potted plant. He thinks he could take care of a potted plant.

To his surprise, when Finn opens the door, he finds BB-8 lounging around in the middle of the room.

“Hey little robot!” Finn exclaims excitedly and kneels down next to the droid. “What are you doing here?”

He can’t say he understands the comings and goings of the droid. It seems to follow its own will much more than just follow Poe around, but apart from that, Finn has no idea.

BB-8 gives off a series of whistles that, to Finn, might have been anything.

“Um…” Finn scratches his head. “I’ll admit I didn’t think this through.”

He wishes briefly he had one of the translator screens he’s seen the X-Wing pilots use. Those would come in handy, until Rey comes back to tell him what BB-8 wants to say. Or Poe wanders in. Where is he, anyway? He left for a flight drill this morning, so shouldn’t BB-8 be with him?

Finn frowns. Is Poe back already?

The prospect thrills Finn. He resigned himself to a slow evening because mostly Poe’s missions last well into the night, but BB-8’s presence in Finn’s room seems to say otherwise. He just has to find him.

Groaning with the added strain on his back, Finn gets up and grabs his cane. “You want to go find Poe?”

BB-8, luckily, nods for Finn to see. Finn gives it a thumbs-up.

\--

It’s not all that hard to find Poe, since he’s lying pretty much immobilised on his bunk and complains loudly, much to the annoyance of his roommates.

“What happened to him?” Finn asks Snap, who is wringing out his jumpsuit over the sink.

“Whipped his head the wrong way in the cockpit and now his neck hurts.” Snap shrugs. “Happened to all of us once or twice. It’s no big deal.”

“That’s just rude, Snap. I’m in pain here,” Poe calls from his bed.

“And tomorrow you’ll be fine,” Snap replies, “Sleep it off, Poe.”

Poe makes a face as Finn goes to sit down next to him. BB-8 whistles busily. Poe raises an eyebrow, and even manages a weak laugh. “Thank you, Bee-Bee.”

“What is it saying?” Finn looks from Poe to his droid and back. “Honestly, it was just in my room when I came back from therapy. I think it wanted to tell me something.”

“Bee-Bee’s saying it wanted to help me since I seem to be in pain. It made the observation I’m much happier in your company.”

Snap in the background grumbles something about _not being able to stand all this flirting in his room_. Finn tries to mask the fact that his face is once again turning warm by busying himself with BB-8. The little droid keeps rolling around them excitedly.

“Well, if there’s anything I can do to help…” Finn says.

“No, no, I wouldn’t dream of it, please.” Poe waves it off with one hand. “You’re still recovering from an injury yourself, this is nothing. I’ll be fine by tomorrow, like Snap said.”

“ _By the Force, Dameron_ …” Snap mutters. Poe ignores him.

“Are you sure?” Finn asks, because Poe looks really uncomfortable and Finn still remembers the pain in his neck from lying down in medbay to long. In his experience, it’s fucking agony.

“You could try to relax his muscles, you know, something he’s been demanding I do since we came back from this mission but which I had to decline because I’m already taking over his debrief and I have no time,” Snap says pointedly, while trying not to look their way.

Poe wants to raise up in protest but quickly remembers why this isn’t a good idea. He grimaces. “Finn, really, it’s no bother, I already took some painkillers and they’ll kick in any minute now.”

“I don’t mind,” Finn says, “Come on, sit up, I’ll do my best.”

“Finn, really, with your back I’m not sure you should…”

Poe is still protesting as Finn nudges his side, but he sits up as he’s told anyway. Finn moves behind him.

“My back is already loads better, Poe, really.”

Finn digs his fingers into Poe’s neck, and feels Poe relax into his touch. The muscles are tense, but Finn takes his time to work out the knots and tensions he can find. Poe’s skin is warm, even through his shirt, and he makes quiet, relaxed noises as Finn works.

Snap heads out at some point, mumbling something about _not needing to see or hear this_ , but to Finn it barely registers. He is caught up in how Poe leans back against his hands, eyes closed, and sighing quietly every time Finn moves his hands.

At this point, Finn’s face is burning. He wants to pull Poe into a hug and just hold him for a while. Maybe kiss him – and the thought doesn’t really come all that surprising to Finn, it’s just the tip of a realisation that has been long coming.

When Finn finally lets go of Poe’s neck, Poe just leans back into Finn, his back against Finn’s chest, and Finn tries to breathe carefully so as not to disturb him. Poe still has his eyes closed, and his breathing is slow.

“Thanks,” he says quietly.

“Do you feel better now?” Finn asks, embarrassed at how raspy his voice comes out. He clears his throat.

Poe nods. “Loads.”

He, too, sounds hoarse. Finn swallows.

They don’t say anything anymore for a while. Finn leans back against the headrest of Poe’s bed, Poe lying back on Finn’s chest. Poe has his eyes closed and may or may not be asleep, Finn’s not really sure, but he knows that he himself, for one thing, can’t stop looking away from Poe. It feels torture to have him so close and yet not be sure what it all means, how it will all play out, and what he’s supposed to do.

He does drape one arm across Poe’s upper body, though. For support. To keep Poe from sliding off the bed. Poe will totally understand when he wakes up.

Eventually, Finn must have nodded off, too, because he is woken up by Poe, still lying draped halfway across Finn, whispering in his ear.

“Hey, Finn. _Finn_. Are you awake?”

Finn opens his eyes, blinks once or twice. His vision clears. “I am now, yeah.”

“Sorry,” Poe mutters, “I just woke up and realised I fell asleep on you like a complete ass. Maybe you should go back to your own bed? This can’t be good for your back, buddy.”

Finn nods, still sleepy and very disappointed he’ll now have to move from Poe’s way too warm and inviting bed. Also, move away from Poe.

“Are the others not back yet?” Finn asks, sitting up gingerly and turning in different directions to stretch the muscles in his back.

“No idea,” Poe says. He moved back on the bed a bit but is still sitting close to Finn. “I only just woke up, too.”

“Hmm.” Finn gets up and picks up his cane from where it’s leaning against the bed. Poe gets up with him, putting a hand to Finn’s arm.

“Really, thanks for the massage. My neck is so much better now.”

Finn smiles. “Really, I’m glad I could help.”

To Finn’s surprise, Poe moves to engulf him in a hug. Finn hugs back enthusiastically – or as enthusiastically as is possible with a slightly stiff back and a cane in his hand. Poe pats his shoulder and then lets him go again, expression on his face unreadable. “Right. I won’t keep you any longer. Sleep well!”

“You too,” Finn says, moving to the door but turning one last time to smile at Poe, who has snuck back under the blanket on his bed. He is smiling, too.

\--

Space is cold, and Rey is tired.

She’s in the pilot seat of the Millenium Falcon, her hands going through the motions almost automatically. She’s had a lot of time to familiarise herself with the controls in the past weeks, she doesn’t need to look to know to steer the ship anymore.

There’s more to it than just familiarity, though, something Rey is trying not to think about too hard.

Chewbacca is sitting next to her, quietly feeding the nav computer data for the jump into hyperspace as they exit the atmosphere of the planet behind them, different hues of blues and greens illuminated by the sun.

Luke Skywalker is on the passenger seat behind her.

She doesn’t know that he sat there before, but she can sense the quiet familiarity he radiates even when she’s not focussing on it. Him coming onto the Falcon had been an onslaught of emotion, good and bad, happy and bitter, and Rey had understood for the first time what it meant, really meant to be a Force user. Much to her annoyance, she is still too inexperienced to shut out most of it.

Luke doesn’t say much, she discovered. Mostly he just gives her looks and cryptic instructions, and Rey looks at him and tries to reconcile what she sees with the image of a young farmboy off a desert planet not unlike hers. His face is world-weary, and the glint in his eyes is almost gone.

Chewie had showed her pictures of Han and Luke and Leia one quiet moment on their way to Anch-To, and now Rey is juggling the two different images in her head – one is Luke, his arms around Leia and Han, smiling at the holo-recorder; the other is Luke as he sits behind her now, his shoulders hunched and beard grey, the face of a man who hasn’t seen or spoken to another being in years.

“I can’t help you like you want me to,” Luke says as Rey makes the last preparations for the jump, and she flinches. When he speaks, it always comes out of nowhere. She doesn’t really expect him to speak.

She turns around, and gets a sudden feeling that he doesn’t just mean _you_ as in _Rey_ , but _you_ as in _the entire Resistance_.

Rey wants to say that she certainly doesn’t have to be saved, that nobody can expect one person to be all that is needed in the fight against evil and that sometimes all one can do is _be there_ , but she doesn’t. She turns back towards the controls and gives Chewie the A-OK for the jump. She loves watching the stars zoom past them, loves the sudden rush of speed. Transit through hyperspace is boring, but nothing comes close to that first moment.

“You are very strong,” Luke says, and again it doesn’t feel like an observation made in the moment, but a comment that was inspired by something Rey hasn’t yet gained access to. She can feel it sometimes when she closes her eyes. It’s right there, like she just has to reach out and touch.

“I grew up all on my own,” she says by way of answering. Luke nods, like that explains everything.

Chewie casts a glance at Luke when he thinks no one is looking. He’s been doing that since Rey came back with him after several days on the island, like he expects Luke to say something.

Luke had just patted Chewie’s arm and moved towards the ship. He hadn’t even flinched when Rey had told him that Han had died, either, just nodded gravely like he already knew.

Rey wonders if it’s the exile that made him peculiar, or losing his apprentice.

She wills these thoughts away, leaning back in her pilot seat on the Millenium Falcon. She is coming back to the Resistance with Luke Skywalker in tow, a feat no one before her managed. She should feel elated, victorious, _happy_ , but she feels none of these things. She can only feel the weight of what will be expected of her in the weeks and months to come, of her and Luke Skywalker, last and first of the Jedi. She doesn’t even know where to begin.

“You should use the time in transit to meditate,” Luke suggests. He gets up and moves towards the back of the ship. Rey sighs, hands Chewie the controls and follows him.

If this is the Force, she doesn’t really know what to make of it. The first week on the island, all Luke had her do was meditate, teaching her to let herself into a trance so deep she wasn’t even sure how much time passed when she came back up again. She sees images, but they are blurred and fleeting, and never make much sense. Luke always makes her recount them anyway, and nods as if her descriptions of colours and shapes spell out more to him. Maybe he sees them, too, Rey had thought on the third day.

When she finds him in the common room now, he is already sitting on the floor, his legs crossed and eyes closed. Rey sits down opposite of him like he showed her, closing her eyes as well and breathing deep. She sinks into the trance more easily already – it feels like slipping into an ocean moving around her, swirls and currents tugging at her and willing her in one direction or another while she stays perfectly still. She’s beginning to understand the meaning of _the Force is all around us_.

Today – or tonight, it’s not like there is day-or nighttime on a freighter in space – the shapes are mostly green, a lusher, richer green than what she had seen on Luke’s island, where all colours seemed to have been drained dry by the grey sea around them. The green in her vision is vibrant and alive, dotted with blue and swaying under her like a swamp stirred by a gentle current. The green is accompanied by a feeling of buzzing activity, _life_ like Rey hasn’t felt it before. She isn’t sure how long she stares at the green, trying to make more out of the blurred shapes and colours, but eventually a hand on her shoulder recalls her from her vision.

They _are_ visions, she is almost sure of that. She is seeing things through the Force, she’s just not sure _what_ she’s seeing.

“I saw it, too,” Luke says, nodding gravely.

“Saw what?” Rey asks. “It was only shapes for me again. What was it?”

“In time, you will learn to see.” Luke pauses to look at his hands. “I’m not sure I could explain it if I wanted to. You have to learn to see for yourself. It takes practise.”

Rey doesn’t say that this seems pointless, that she doesn’t know how she will defeat Kylo Ren with her magical visions of interesting colours. That’s her endgame, right? She will have to face Ren again, and she will have to make it count that time. She can’t see Luke Skywalker taking up his sword to do the dirty work for her, anyway. He may be a symbol of hope for the Resistance, but he’s also old and disillusioned. He had his fight against evil and prevailed, and then evil came back to take its revenge.

“I’m trying,” Rey says, “I just… how can I have had these abilities all my life and never known?”

To her surprise, Luke almost laughs. There’s certainly something tugging at the corners of his mouth, although it doesn’t seem to be strong enough to move his entire face.

“A Jedi master would have told you you’re too old for training,” Luke says wistfully, “I certainly was, or so they thought. I was even older than you when I found B… Obi-Wan. But people like us, we… we use the Force all the time. We don’t even know it. But we practise these abilities, and we keep them sharp to a certain degree. I am not teaching you anything you don’t know yet. I’m just trying to help you discover the power you have, and what that means for you.”

Rey sees a little bit of the boy in him, then. She imagines him piloting little skiffs in the deserts of Tatooine, twin suns at his back and nothing but joy in his mind like the stories she used to hear. It seems like a stretch, but that boy must still be in there somewhere, under all the disappointment. And he seems like a person Rey can work with – someone like her, who is also trying to understand what is happening to him, not an all-knowing master of an ancient art.

“I’ll rest now,” Luke says, “I imagine my sister will have a terrible amount of questions when I come back.”

He sounds almost rueful, and Rey laughs, because suddenly Luke is just a brother coming home to a scolding from a family member. Maybe he’s not so distant and isolated, after all.

Rey moves back to the cockpit. When she sits down next to Chewie, he informs her that they’re almost a quarter of the way there. Rey checks the chrono, unbelieving – she meditated for almost six hours.

She opens a ration pack, watches the stars bending around them while she eats. A couple more hours and she’ll be home. She likes the sound of that.

\--

Finn wakes up the next morning and still isn’t entirely sure what happened yesterday.

It’s still early, but after a while of tossing and turning around in bed, Finn realises sleep seems to be off the table. When he gets up to go to the bathroom, there’s a low beeping noise whose source Finn can’t quite locate.

He looks around in confusion, but sees nothing. It’s not BB-8, Poe always takes the droid on his missions, and they should have left early this morning. Also Finn’s pretty sure he would see BB-8 if it were hiding in his room.

The beep sounds again. This time, Finn catches the direction of the noise. It seems to be something on the table.

He walks towards the table, which is on the side of the room that he leaves unoccupied for potential new roommates that never seem to show up. There’s a small handheld device on the table, which Finn recognises as a communicator.

He picks it up, and sees two missed calls from an unknown contact.

Since there’s nobody else living in this room, the com device has to be his. Probably a helpful soul left it here without telling Finn about it. Or somebody broke into his room and forgot their communicator.

Finn shrugs, and dials the number back.

He recognises the voice at the other end, though it does take him a moment to place it.

“Finn? We couldn’t get a hold of you this morning.”

“General?” Finn asks incredulously.

“Yes, sorry to disturb you.” General Organa sounds like she’s in the middle of something. “Shael told me you wanted to sign up for work. We can’t put you up for anything physical yet, the doctors tell me, but I thought you might enjoy a visit to the command centre.”

She doesn’t phrase it as a question, but not quite as a command, either. Finn is a little bit stunned, to be honest.

“Hello, Finn, are you still there?”

Finn can hear voices in the background of the call. Of course, he realises, the General must be in the command centre herself. And for some reason she thinks that Finn might be useful there.

“Yes, sorry!” he manages, “Yes, I would love to. Um… just give me ten minutes, okay?”

\--

Finn makes it to the command centre exactly ten minutes later, a feat of which he is very proud. The place is as much a bustle of activity as when he last visited it – people are standing around in front of large holoscreens, marking things down and giving orders down com lines in hushed voices. The General herself is hunched over a large tactical map in the middle of the room, her short figure framed by the blue light.

Finn stands next to her awkwardly. “Um… Ma’am. I’m here.”

She turns, and gives him a genuine smile. For all her quite intimidating relentlessness in battle, she seems an oddly friendly figure outside of it.

She guides him around the tactical map, off to a side booth occupied by a short human woman with dark skin and short hair held back by a headset.

“Finn, this is Anya. She’s overseeing the mission of Red and Blue Squadron today. If you want to, you’re welcome to join her. It’s her job to monitor the com channel and try to keep an overview of things so she can get the pilots out of trouble if necessary. Anya, this is Finn.”

Anya pulls the headset off one of her ears and smiles at Finn. “Hi,” she says, “Here’s a spare headset. Just plug it in, and you’re good to go.”

For some reason, General Organa winks at him before she goes. Finn feels mildly unsettled by this.

Finn takes the headset from Anya, who has put hers back on, and sits down on the chair next to her. He has a vague idea what the map in front of her is supposed to represent. Anyway, he puts the headset back on, and is met with mostly silence.

“I can’t hear anything,” he says to Anya.

“They’re still in transit,” Anya explains, and her voice sounds muffled.

“Why are you so quiet?” Finn asks, who expected her voice to be much clearer with the mic.

Anya points to a button on the console. “Our mics are on silent unless we turn them on. We don’t want to distract the pilots.”

“Right,” Finn says and nods, determined to live up to whatever it is that the General is expecting from him, “So what are we doing today?”

“The squads are taking turns at mapping the uncharted territory at the moment. The missions are mostly quiet recon missions, but we keep a lookout anyway.”

“So this map is…”

“The long distance scanners of the X-Wings, yes.” Anya nods. “It’s hard to keep track of all the instruments readings when you’re navigating a tiny metal shell through a vacuum, I imagine. We’re like the backup brain. Second and third set of eyes”

Finn begins to feel like he can do this. “Okay, got it.”

He watches Anya feed the computer some data, familiarises himself with the system a bit while the pilots are in transit through hyperspace. The bustle of the command centre is almost cut out by the headset, but he still can see figures moving at the edge of his vision when someone passes. It feels exciting and strange at the same time to be here, at the centre of everything.

Suddenly static cracks across the speaker. “Mission control, we’re out of hyperspace.”

Finn feels like he just received an electric shock. He barely stops himself from making an embarrassing noise.

Anya pushes the button on the console. “Understood, black leader.”

Anya fixes her gaze on the map. Finn refrains from making an embarrassing comment like ‘ _Force, that’s Poe!_ ’, or something equally intelligent.

“We’re entering the system now,” Poe’s voice comes distorted through Finn’s headphones, “This should be a quiet one, but keep your eyes on the scanners just in case. We can’t be too careful.”

For about an hour, the X-Wings just traverse empty space before they come even close to a planet. Poe orders two of his pilots to send drones to orbit around the planet. Finn learns those drones will collect data on the atmosphere to determine recent activity. That way the Resistance can tell if the First Order has been to this system recently.

“There are so many places to hide in this galaxy,” Anya says to Finn, “I’m not even sure we’ll find the First Order if they don’t want to be found. We’re really just taking a stab at the dark here.”

The exploration continues like this for a while. Finn watches a virtual map of the system built on their screen. At some point, Anya takes a bathroom break and Finn is left to monitor the pilots alone for a while. Nothing happens, though, and then Anya comes back with drinks and snacks for both of them. The snacks are spicy warranuts, and Finn discovers he really enjoys the taste.

“Releasing last drone, mission control,” Poe says eventually.

Anya pushes the button again. “Understood. Safe travels home, black leader. The same to your squadrons.”

Poe’s laugh is distorted over the dodgy connection. “Are you snacking, mission control?”

Anya grins at Finn. “Must be the interference. Eyes on the target, black leader.”

Finn imagines Poe grumbling something like _interference my ass_ but keeps it to himself. The map is still incomplete but growing bigger with data from the drones. In the span of several hours, the X-Wings released some forty-two drones in the system. Their broadcasts back to the Resistance help not only to locate possible First Order bases but also to help the pilots navigate the wild space. One day, it will make for a lovely tactical advantage.

There’s a blip on the map.

Finn looks to Anya at first, sure that she must have noticed, but she just keeps marking down data as if nothing has happened.

“Anya, do you see this?”

“See what?”

Finn pulls up readings from one of the drones, trying to determine what caused the blip on the sensors. Anya takes a look at the readings. “Oh, that’s just normal asteroid interference.”

“In that formation?” Finn frowns.

Anya takes another look. “Now that you put it like this.”

She pushes the button. “Black leader, there are vessels of undetermined origin on your tail, flying in formation. I suggest you don’t wait until we’ve determined _what_ it is. Get out of that system _now_.”

“Understood, mission control.”

Poe relays that comment to his squadron leaders, and they make the calculations for the jump. Finn’s on the edge of his seat as he watches the unknown vessels on the radar inch closer.

“That’s definitely First Order,” he says to Anya, “Look at the composites.”

The readings from the drones are getting more specific now. Anya looks impressed.

“I’d have only spotted it now. It would have been too late for them to make the jump, probably.”

“Making the jump now,” Poe announces, “We’ll take the scenic route in case they try to follow us, but we should be back on base early tomorrow morning. Black leader out.”

One by one, the X-Wing markers disappear off the radar. Finn takes a deep breath and leans back in his seat.

“By all nine Corellian hells,” he says, “You do this every day?”

“Hey.” Anya playfully punches his shoulder. “Don’t be like this now. You totally rocked it!”

“This is so stressful,” Finn announces.

“Imagine being out there,” Anya replies, “The way I see it, we’re the ones that keep a level head. For their sakes. We can step back from the console every time, but those pilots depend on us. And you certainly saved a couple of lives there.”

She nods at him encouragingly even as he’s trying to protest. “Good job.”

\--

“So I heard you saved my ass today?”

Finn looks up from where he is sitting on his mat; pushing forward trying to reach his toes. Poe is leaning against the doorframe of the gym, still in his pilot suit. It’s morning the day after Finn’s first day in the command centre, by no accounts still the same day he ‘ _saved Poe’s ass_ ’ as the pilot puts it. Poe is smiling, despite looking dead tired.

“Um,” Finn says intelligently, “I only pointed out a pattern in the formation of a reading on the radar.”

Poe pushes himself off the door, slowly walking into the gym. He walks gingerly, and Finn can only imagine how stiff his entire body must feel after so much time in the cockpit.

“Right, only a reading on the radar. Which, if you hadn’t noticed, would have turned out to be First Order scouts and it would have been too late for me and my team to make our hasty exit. The General was speaking of you in the highest tones over the com when we came out of hyperspace.”

Finn gives up on trying to reach his toes and sits back up to look at the approaching Poe looming above him.

“That’s two times you saved my life now. Are you trying to prove a point?”

Finn struggles for something witty to say. “I’d have no one else to watch holovids with if you were gone.”

He’ll admit it’s not his best line. Poe laughs quietly, anyway. “Point taken.”

He sits down across from Finn, close enough for Finn to see the dark shadows under Poe’s eyes. Finn wants to reach out and smooth them out with his thumb, wants to see Poe close his eyes and relax.

He keeps his hands firmly placed next to his legs as support for his upper body.

“You look terrible,” he says instead, and congratulates himself on his suaveness. After all, there’s nothing nicer to say to the guy who just returned from a terrible and life-threatening mission than _you look terrible_.

Poe nods with a rueful grin. “I suppose. I was off to take a shower, but I wanted to thank you first.”

Finn gets up, which he is getting better and better at from day to day now. “Come on. I can’t believe you’re not asleep in bed right now. How is your neck, anyway?”

There’s something in Poe’s eyes when he meets Finn’s gaze for a moment that makes Finn feel weak in the knees, but then Poe looks down and Finn recovers.

“Fine, thanks. I don’t think I could have flown that mission if you hadn’t lent a helping hand there.”

Finn swallows. “Hey, anytime. Glad I could help you there.”

Poe puts an arm around Finn’s shoulder as they exit the gym. Finn makes sure Poe gets to his room without any further distractions, and ushers him into the shower, then just sort of awkwardly sits on Poe’s bed, trying not to disturb the sleeping Niem and Jessika. Poe emerges from the shower in pyjamas and basically collapses into bed. Finn refrains from tucking him in or kissing him goodnight, instead pats him awkwardly on the (totally safe) shoulder and whispers a quiet _goodnight_ before retreating to his room. He can’t deny the ache in his chest that has eased at seeing Poe alive and well, and he wonders how others cope with seeing people they love throw themselves into danger on a more or less daily basis.

He doesn’t think it’s something he could deal with, and then he thinks of Rey and the fact that he still doesn’t know where she is or how she’s doing, and feels guilty again. She should be here right now, Finn knows that. Everything would be fine if only Rey were here with him.

\--

The Millenium Falcon touches down in the dead of night. The landing strip has been cleared on the General’s orders, under the guise of fear of an attack by the First Order, but Leia just doesn’t want the whole base to be there when she welcomes Rey and her brother home. From Rey’s cryptic message, it was impossible to determine what state the two of them would be in.

She’s sure that Chewbacca is fine, though.

As the ramp lowers, Leia feels herself holding her breath. It’s been so long, she realises, and so much has happened. She doesn’t even know what to say to Luke.

R2-D2 is first down the ramp, followed by Chewbacca, who nods at her but keeps his distance. He seems to understand her first priority right now is getting a good look at her no-good brother.

Rey walks down the ramp next, and she looks grim but fine. Her new clothes are grass-stained, and her hair is sticking up in all directions once again, but she looks much more at peace than she had when Leia had first met her.

And then it’s Luke on the ramp, and Leia can’t stop herself. She breaks out into a run to embrace her brother. Luke, his face weathered, his beard long and grey, just holds her.

“It’s you, you menacing pile of bantha-crap,” she curses, “What were you _thinking_?”

Luke laughs. “I was afraid you might say something like this.”

“Well, you deserve it!” Leia says. “Never, ever, do that again, you hear me?”

There are a thousand things she wants to ask Luke. About Ben, and about Anakin Skywalker’s lightsaber turning up in the hands of a scavenger from Jakku, about Han. She wants to ask him if he felt the same things that she felt, but out here is not the time or the place. She lets go of her brother, takes her time to greet Rey and then guide them inside to get them all settled in. She’ll make more plans tomorrow. For now, it’s time to rest.

\--

Poe gets up early the next day.

He slept for over twelve hours after the ordeal that was leading the First Order on a goose-chase through the uncharted systems. He doesn’t think that, in all his years as a pilot, he’s ever been behind the wheel for quite as long, so he crashed early yesterday afternoon and then woke up at five am the next morning.

His sleep rhythm will be so shot to hell by this.

There’s a disgusting taste in his mouth, so he brushes his teeth first and then decides to get some food. A look in the mirror tells him that there are still dark circles under his eyes, but that they are far less pronounced than yesterday. Which reminds him of Finn, and the fact that he will probably have to write him a thank-you note for saving Poe’s life once again.

He quietly puts on a shirt and some pants – the others are still sleeping – and then opens the door. He’s checking his com, which means he almost doesn’t see the person on the other side of it until he runs into them.

He gives a little surprised shout.

“I almost didn’t see you there!”

The door slides shut behind Poe and he looks up and sees – Rey.

“What in all nine Corellian hells,” he exclaims.

“Morning, Poe,” Rey says with a smile, tired but exhilarated nonetheless.

\--

They make it to the mess hall without Poe asking a million questions, though he certainly _wants_ to. Rey is quiet next to him, and Poe is beginning to realise she must have just come back from her mission, she’s still wearing the same clothes as when she left, her staff is slung over her shoulder, though she’s missing the jacket she used to wear around base all the time.

Which just means Poe can see the lightsaber hanging off her belt, and which she puts into her bag before they enter the mess, almost like an afterthought.

Poe gets in line to get them some food, and Rey, again, picks the table at the far end of the hall. There are a few heads turning, but not many seem to recognise her as the girl who left to find Luke Skywalker some three weeks ago. It’s all in the context, Poe thinks. Rey can decide to outshine the people around her, or she can blend in so effectively that she’s almost invisible. He’s never had that skill.

He finds her at her table, pushing one of the plates over to her.

“So you’re back.”

“I’m back, yeah.” Rey picks at the rations, chews them thoughtfully.

“So… um.” Poe makes a vague gesture with his hands. “You found him, then? Skywalker?”

Rey looks around suspiciously. There aren’t a lot of people around at this time, and they are all sitting well out of earshot. She still leans forward conspicuously.

“It’s not supposed to be common knowledge on base right now. The General says we should give him time to adjust, that he’ll come forward in his own time.”

“So he _is_ back,” Poe says.

Rey nods.

“Wow. You found Luke Skywalker. I… how was that?”

Rey considers his question for a moment. “Underwhelming.”

That makes Poe laugh. “What, there wasn’t any dramatic music? No fireworks? Not even a little lightshow?”

Rey chuckles, and her whole body moves with it. Poe is always amazed by how she can be dead serious one moment, and almost childishly happy the next.

“He was just a very normal old man. Who, in the last years, has sort of unlearnt how to deal with people.” She looks around unsurely. “I’m not even sure if I’m supposed to say this. I mean, he’s technically my Jedi-Master now. I should probably be in awe and respectful.”

“Eh.” Poe shrugs. “If he can’t take being made a little fun of, he probably deserves to be taken down a peg.”

“He’s not like that.” Rey shakes her head decisively. “No, it’s more… I don’t know, I think he’s tired. Disillusioned, maybe. Like he just wants the galaxy to leave him alone already.”

“For that I can’t blame him,” Poe snorts. He’s also beginning to realise just how hungry he is. After all, he skipped lunch and dinner yesterday. He digs into his breakfast, already considering a second helping.

“Listen,” Rey says after a moment of silence, “I’ve been meaning to ask, I mean… I only came back yesterday night, and I had no time…”

She shakes her head as if to clear it from the obstructing words and phrases. “Is Finn awake?”

Poe puts down the ration he’s holding. “Yeah, he’s awake,” he says carefully, “He’s fine, actually. Really good.”

There’s so much he wants to tell her – how much Finn enjoys the holovids Poe shows him, how he always smiles when Poe jokes around with his other pilots, how he tries to talk to BB-8 even though he can’t understand the droid, but he doesn’t even know where to begin.

A weight seems to slip off Rey’s shoulders. She breathes deep, rolls her shoulders leans back. Closes her eyes for a brief moment and just smiles.

“I knew it. I knew he’d wake up.”

“He’s probably dying to see you, you know.”

“Yeah, I just…” Rey purses her lips. “I just didn’t know where to go. I helped the General get Luke settled in, and then I stayed to give her a detailed account of how things went for us, and then my first thought was to find you. I think even my old room is taken.”

“Hey, no worries, we’ll get you settled in.”

Poe puts his hand across the table, offers his open palm for her to take. She slides her smaller hand into his with only a brief moment of hesitation. Her skin is dry and warm. Poe squeezes her hand briefly, then just holds it.

“Yeah,” Rey replies, “Thanks, Poe.”

“Do you wanna go find Finn now?” Poe asks, “Usually he’s still asleep at this time. We could surprise him.”

A small smile creeps onto Rey’s face, pushing away the exhaustion and weariness there.

“That would be nice.”

\--

Rey realises she is feeling nervous as she follows Poe down hallways that are still largely unknown to her. She spent maybe a week on base, which feels like nothing compared to the weeks she spent tracking down Skywalker and then beginning her training with him before he deemed them ready to leave the island and the planet. It still feels like a dream that she is here, that she can now call this place home.

Poe smiles over his shoulder as they turn at an intersection of corridors. He is genuinely excited, Rey realises. He really can’t wait for her to see Finn again. It makes her feel calmer immediately.

They’re not all that far from Poe’s room, Rey realises when Poe stops and knocks at a door to their left.

There’s a moment of silence, and then the door slides open. Finn is standing there in his pyjamas, eyes sleepy and trying to piece together what he’s seeing.

Rey is smiling so wide that her jaw hurts.

“Rey…?” Finn blinks again, still confused, then looks at her with big eyes. “Rey!”

She rushes forward and hugs him. Poe honestly _cheers_.

“By the Force, Rey, you’re back!” Finn exclaims after he’s finally let her go, still holding on to her arms to look her up and down if she’s alright though. “You’re _back_!”

“And all in one piece,” Poe chimes in, “Really, I’d say better than new.”

Rey pulls a face at him.

“Your clothes are new,” Finn says.

“You can talk,” Rey replies, pointing to what Finn is wearing. The pyjamas are mismatched and well-worn but Finn seems comfortable in them. He must have gotten them second hand; the way most seems to be traded here on base.

“Oh, those are just…” Finn looks to Poe, embarrassed. “Sorry, I really didn’t expect any company this morning. I should…”

He probably wants to say get changed, but Rey doesn’t allow him the opportunity. Instead, she hugs him again, absent-mindedly wondering when she became so physically affectionate. After the weeks she just spent in the company of a solitary Jedi, however, she feels like a little human touch here and there can’t be a bad thing.

“So are we all up for a little get-together at your place tonight, Finn?” Poe asks, scratching the back of his head. “I gotta go now, the General still wants me to go over some parts of that First Order debacle, but I’ll be done with that and my cleaning shift at five the latest. Catch you then?”

He thinks for another moment. “We could get Rey settled in your room. You still have an empty bunk, right? I’ll check it with administration while I’m on my way.”

Finn nods along to everything confusedly. “Yeah… yeah, that sounds great. Yes to everything!”

He smiles at Rey. “If you want to, that is?”

Rey has never bunked with anyone her entire life, or at least for as long as she can remember. She thinks she would enjoy spending time with Finn.

“Sure. That sounds great!”

“Don’t worry, he’ll get on your nerves in no time,” Poe says with a wink, and he affectionately ruffles Finn’s hair as he passes. Rey looks between them again, tries to figure out what Finn is thinking as his gaze follows Poe down the corridor, but falls short.

“Great, so can I come in?”

Finn moves aside and lets her in. The room is small but not overly so, with two bunks, one of which is still unoccupied. Finn has taken the bunk on the left side, the blanket still rumpled from where he must have been sleeping before the surprise visit from Poe and Rey. There is very little else in terms of personal belongings, except for a little potted plant on the windowsill. It sits in a rose-coloured pot, with bushy green leaves reaching upwards. Dotted in between are tiny blossoms.

Rey loves it.

“It’s comfy,” she says. Certainly more comfortable than a decommissioned AT-AT walker, though she does feel a pang of sentimentality thinking back to her old home.

“It like it, too.”

Finn sits back down on his bunk, pulling the blanket into his lap. Rey looks around once more, then decides to get settled in. She puts down her bag, pulling out the lightsaber and attaching it to her belt again. She doesn’t like walking around with it visible on base, but Luke told her not to leave it lying around anywhere, and that it was important she form a connection to the sword, so carry it around she does. She’ll just have to get used to wearing a jacket again.

Looking down at her clothes she realises those probably need a wash after her extended mission.

“Hey, do you know if I can wash my stuff anywhere?” she asks.

“There’s a laundry room down the hall,” Finn says, making vague gestures towards the door, “But if it’s urgent, you can wash them in the sink? That’s what Poe always does with his jumpsuit when he needs it for a mission the next day.”

“Yeah.”

Rey figures she’ll probably try that but. She doesn’t have a spare set. And she’s not about to undress in front of Finn while he’s still sitting there looking like she’s a vision from a dream.

Great, now she’s blushing. She turns away, hoping that Finn doesn’t see how red her face is turning, and busies herself with the other contents of her bag. It was easy to ignore whatever it was she felt for Finn while they were still in mortal danger, or while he was in a coma, or while she was out there on Important Jedi Business but now… Well, it seems like she will have to face it. One way or another.

There’s a creak of the bunk, and she realises Finn has crawled back into bed and back under his blanket. She smiles at the image of him with the blanket drawn up to his chin, chasing the leftover warmth. Finn smiles back, guilt-free and genuinely happy.

“It’s so good to have you back,” he says.

Rey has to swallow. “It’s good to be back.”

\--

Finn goes out at some point, and Rey uses the time to take a shower. For lack of a better option, she puts her old clothes back on, and then goes in search of new ones at the commissary. She’s in luck, there are a few that fit her, mismatched though as they are, but she takes them and rinses her old ones in the sink as good as possible. She’ll have Finn show her the laundry room tomorrow.

Finn left her his communicator in case Poe calls. He’d told her that he’s now helping out in the command centre, and had sounded incredibly proud. Rey is astounded by how different this Finn is from the insecure Stormtrooper she met on Jakku. He is much more sure of himself, more at rest.

She likes it.

Among Rey’s meagre possessions still is the slip of paper with Poe’s com-code. She puts it on the table next to the com, but figures Poe will come by on his own.

Finn comes back from the command centre eventually, and he tells her about her shift and the things she missed while she was out chasing old Jedi legends. He’s not yet allowed to do manual labour, but his back, he says, is much better, almost as good as new. She knows he is exaggerating by the way he sometimes still flinches when he moves in the wrong direction, but she’ll willing to let it slide. As long as Finn feels okay, she’ll take his word for it.

Poe comes by immediately after his training, slightly out of breath and the top of his orange jumpsuit tied around his waist. Underneath, he’s wearing a white undershirt. Rey realises she’s never seen him anything less than completely buttoned up in a jumpsuit or long shirts, and realises simultaneously what a crying shame that has been. She might not have had a lot of interest in men in the past, but Poe is _attractive_.

“Hey,” he says, “Sorry, I got held up. My nav computer got busted, and me and BB-8 had to stay to fix it. And then the Admiral wanted a word and well… let’s just say I got held up.”

He gives them an apologetic smile, and moves towards one of the chairs in front of the window. Behind his back, Finn and Rey exchange a _look_. Rey is certain they both thought the same when they saw Poe come in, but isn’t sure what it means.

“No worries,” Finn says with a smile in Poe’s direction once he has settled. “So what did you bring us?”

“Earth Wars. It’s a bit kitschy, very soap opera, but a total classic.”

Rey is tempted to cover her face with her hands. Between her and Finn, she probably has at least somewhat of a taste in movies, because the odd harddrive she’d found had a movie or some music on it. She wouldn’t call her taste refined, but she knows enough to see that Poe has the most romantic taste in movies ever.

“You are so cliché,” she mutters.

“What, I thought you liked the movies I picked!”

“I _do_!” Rey has to laugh. “That doesn’t mean they’re any less terrible, objectively.”

Poe gives her a wide smile. “Objectively.”

Finn’s gaze wanders from Rey to Poe and back, and catches an expression she can’t quite place. Maybe he’s wondering what he missed out on while he was comatose.

“Come on, guys,” she says, “Let’s get this holo thing on the road, I have an early training session tomorrow.”

She is half sure Luke is messing with her about the hours of her training. He can’t be so old as to actually enjoy getting up at four every morning, and Rey has never had a problem with discipline in her life. She half wonders if he’s as clueless as she is – he has trained Jedi before, but his success rate _was_ rather questionable.

“Yeah, and I have flight training,” Poe says.

Rey looks at Finn, and catches him with a smile on his face, somewhat wide-eyed and crooked and… mischievous. “Guess who is sleeping in tomorrow?”

He’s completely caught up in the novel _luxury_ of it, Rey realises.

“If you want to, I can wake you up,” she offers. Finn sputters. “Don’t you dare!”

Rey gets up from her bed to sit next to Finn and ruffle his hair. She still feels the urge to distance herself from everyone, but now and then she finds herself overcome with an overwhelming desire for _contact_.

Suddenly, Poe smacks his head.

“I almost forgot!” he says, and pulls a bag out of his jumpsuit. “I brought these. Should be enough for all of us in there.”

He tosses the bag to Finn who catches it deftly and opens it for him and Rey to inspect. It contains small, sweet-smelling squares, like cookies but softer as Rey discovers when she pulls one out. The dough almost melts on her tongue when she puts it in her mouth. The taste is sugary.

“By the Force!” she exclaims.

“Did you make them?” Finn asks, and Rey stifles a laugh as she sees that he has a bit of powdered sugar smeared in the corner of his mouth from where he stuffed the first pastry into his mouth.

Going by Poe’s smile, he has seen it, too.

“Nah, Jess made them. It was her turn cooking, and I pocketed my portion. Thought you might like them.”

The adoration on his face is so open that it should make Rey uncomfortable. There’s something going on here that she doesn’t want to think about too hard, because that might make it all turn bad. She just wants to enjoy this simple moment with the two closest friends she has in her life.

“Come over here,” she says, motioning to the free spot on Finn’s bed next to her, and Poe doesn’t hesitate. She pushes one of the pastries into his hand as he sits down, and he accepts it with another smile.

“Right, let’s get that holovid going…” Poe says, pulling out the portable screen and setting it up. Rey scoots back on the bed, her legs pulled up to her chest and her back leaning against the wall. Finn joins her, and then the holo starts plaing and Poe sits down on her other side. Strangely, she doesn’t even feel uncomfortable. She likes the way she can feel the other two on either side of her, their shoulders barely brushing, the warmth of another person’s body.

The movie is exactly as terrible as she imagined. It’s naïve, so hopeful that it’s almost embarrassing, but Rey can’t help but hang onto every word of it anyway. Next to her, she can hear Finn sniffling – and okay, of course he’d be the one to cry during a holo. It’s endearing, the way he never bothers to hide what he is feeling.

Poe, who obviously already knows the movie, is content to just lean back and let them enjoy it. Rey notices his eyes sliding closed a couple of times. His breathing is slow and even, and he radiates a calm that is somehow contagious. She feels herself sliding deeper into the bed as well, willing to just give in to this moment as it presents itself to her.

When the film finishes, Poe has fully fallen asleep, and Finn’s eyes are somewhat puffy but he is smiling.

“Dude,” Rey says, “What are we going to do with him?”

Finn takes a look at the sleeping Poe, his face a mixture of endearment and exasperation. “That’s the second time he’s fallen asleep on me. I think he needs to take better care of his sleeping schedule. That can’t be healthy.”

“Let him sleep here. You can bunk with me,” Rey finds herself saying.

Finn looks at her with concern. “Are you sure? I don’t want to…”

“Come on, it’s fine,” Rey says, “I’m tiny, we’ll fit. Besides, I really don’t want to wake up Poe.”

He looks so at ease in his sleep, an upward curve of his mouth visible even when his face is completely relaxed. There’s a warm spark in Rey’s chest, and it carries when she turns to Finn.

Finn looks at her cautiously one more time, but climbs into bed with her nonetheless, after having covered the sleeping Poe with a blanket. Rey holds her blanket up for Finn to get under, and then turns onto her side. Finn carefully adjusts his position so they are not touching, until she huffs and hauls him close.

“Come here,” she says, burying her face in his chest. He’s warm, and he smells exactly like the same standard-issue soap she used. Not a hint of desert sand. “I missed you.”

Finn lets out a deep breath, like he’s so relieved he can’t even put it into words. “I missed you, too.”

\--

Finn gets caught up in Rey in the days after her return.

He shows her around base when he’s not in the command centre, or she’s not busy being off with Luke, and although she has already seen large parts of it she seems to enjoy the walks around. When they leave their room, she hides the lightsaber at her belt under her cloak.

They share the bunk some more times after that first night, and Rey always holds on to Finn and he holds her back. There’s something so comforting in sleeping with another person next to him that Finn never imagined in his wildest dreams – even when Rey kicks him in her sleep, it’s worth waking up in the mornings to see her tangled hair and sleepy face close to his, the way she smiles up and him and then berates him for stealing the blanket. (It’s not true. Rey is the one who keeps all the blankets to herself.)

Poe joins them as often as he can, but seems caught up in his work with the General more and more. Finn doesn’t know exactly what it is that’s going on, and he doesn’t ask, because when Poe comes to them he has dark circles under his eyes and sighs a lot before he finally lets himself relax. It’s all very hush-hush and need-to-know.

One weekday night he does find the time, though. Rey is off on some mysterious, Force-dictated schedule (Rey says Luke has the worst sleeping pattern she has seen in her life), doing whatever Jedi Business it is that she does when she’s with Luke. That, to Finn, is equally mysterious, and even more frightening than some of Poe’s spy stuff. At least Poe’s job, he could realistically learn (though he probably wouldn’t be very good at it). No, Finn’s much happier in the command centre, watching screens and using what he is discovering is a very sharp analytical sense to help the pilots and soldiers out in the field.

So anyway, Poe drags Finn to the rec room, where some pilots and some of the medical staff – they recognise Finn, and give him disapproving looks when he moves too much – are having a little get-together. It’s a party, Finn supposes, but not the loud kind of party. Everybody is holding drinks and standing around in little groups, some are lounging on the mismatched variety of chairs, others are preparing snacks in the kitchenette.

Poe sits Finn down on the sofa, then vows he’ll get him a drink.

“You want something with alcohol? Anti-alcoholic? Sugary? Tea?”

“Juice?” Finn says. He tried alcohol once, and subsequently decided he’s not big on it. The taste isn’t the worst, but he doesn’t like the way it makes his face get all warm. Though, to be fair, Poe seems to have a kind of similar effect on him. Coming to think of it, so does Rey.

“So you will never guess who I saw in the mess the other night.”

Poe sits down next to Finn with their drinks after a short moment. He’s been out on night missions more and more lately, too, though he won’t say why. They never asked Finn to participate or do tacticals for those, either, though for his normal missions Poe asks for him now. So it’s not all that implausible for him to visit the mess at the weirdest hours, exactly.

“No. Who?”

Poe has that grin plastered on his face that Finn loves so much. When he’s genuinely excited like this, he gets completely ecstatic.

“Luke Skywalker.”

“No!” Finn says, although Luke has been on base for a week now. He had to show his face at some point. Finn is still unbelieving, however. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah, there’s no mistaking that face.” Poe shakes his head. “You know, I thought, too, _Poe, you’re seeing things_ , but it was definitely him.”

“Wow,” Finn says, “I mean, Luke Skywalker.”

“He sort of nodded at me as I passed him. Maybe he thought I was a fellow insomniac. I don’t know, I was still in my flight suit. I was pretty tired. But I walk into the mess and there’s Luke Skywalker getting a midnight snack.”

“Well, now we know why Rey trains at the weirdest hours,” Finn laughs.

“Poor guy, though. I can sort of understand him.” Poe runs a hand through his hair, a contemplative expression on his face. “If I were him, I also wouldn’t like everyone to stare at me when I pass and comment on my every move. It must be hard as a living legend.”

“And probably some people are still angry at him for disappearing like that,” Finn adds. He’s been slowly re-learning the history of the Alliance from the ground up, and Luke Skywalker pops up everywhere Finn looks, until he doesn’t. There are still a lot of things he’s not quite clear on, but he can recognise a larger-than-life figure when he sees one. And he somehow knows that people won’t like it when their hero turns out to be just another person, one who is just as capable of mistakes as anyone.

“Yeah, that, too.” Poe snorts. “Do you think Leia punched him? Not even in the face. Just, like, in the shoulder or something.”

“I don’t think she’d do that to someone.” Finn doesn’t really want to imagine the General resorting to physical violence. Objectively, he knows she’s fought her fair share of battles, but he feels she’s intimidating enough without going around punching people. “She probably gave him… a very long lecture. About how disappointed she is.”

There’s a sudden look of horror crossing Poe’s face. “Oh no. Poor Skywalker.”

Yeah, they’ve both seen that lecture in action already. It’s a really strong motivator not to let her down.

“What do you think Rey is doing right now?” Finn asks out of nowhere.

“Learning how to be a Jedi,” Poe says, “Probably grumbling about Luke making her miss all the fun.”

He turns his face towards Finn and grins widely. Finn feels himself get caught up in the brightness of it.

“If it gets too much, we’ll bust her out,” Finn says, “Intervention team for overworked Jedi alumni.”

He nods solemnly, then adds, “You too, you know. The General might need you, but you have to sleep, too.”

The look on Poe’s face shifts, then, for just a second, into something akin to wonder and then dissolves into a laugh.

“You, Finn, are a miracle.”

He’s so serious about it that Finn feels his cheeks running warm. Again. If this continues, he’ll absolutely see a doctor about it. Somebody hanging out with Poe has to have had this problem before. Anybody with eyes should be able to see what Finn’s problem is.

Poe shakes his head wistfully, turning to stare at his hands. “Nah, I’m good. I think. It’s a difficult time for the Resistance. I think Leia… the General…”

He trails off, runs his hands over his face. “Not my place to tell. Sorry…”

“It’s okay.” Finn purses his lips. “You don’t have to. Hey, if it’s top secret, I’m not sure I want to _know_ …”

“Oh, right, that’s me.” Poe shakes his head. “Top secret agent Poe Dameron. Can you imagine? Like in the holos.”

“I can,” Finn blurts out, then curses his apparently non-existent brain-to-mouth filter.

“Finn…” Poe puts a hand on his chest and ok, he’s playing it off as a joke, Finn can relax now. “I’m flattered, really…”

But there’s something in his gaze when Finn catches his eye, something Finn would call half-hopeful if he weren’t only hoping himself. He thinks back to Poe’s sleeping form in his arms, how peaceful he’d looked, how warm he’d felt.

Finn forces out a laugh. “Yeah, you’d make a very dashing secret agent.”

“Eh,” Poe says, and shakes his head again. “I’m content being a dashing X-Wing pilot.”

He looks at Finn from the side, out of the corner of his eye, a secretive grin on his face. When he chuckles, Finn joins in. Poe relaxes and leans back on the couch, his shoulder brushing Finn’s.

Finn freezes immediately, doesn’t move, so that he’s not moving away further but also not giving Poe the impression that he’s moving in. He doesn’t know how to react. Is it a signal? He’s very bad at this.

“Hey, Jess!” Poe calls, and Finn realises he’s spotted his roommate and fellow pilot. “Over here!”

Jess is on the other side of the room by the fridge, CoruAle in hand. She waves excitedly when she sees Poe, and moves over to them.

“Hey you two!” she says, “Where’s Rey?”

“Off training,” Poe says, “Come on, sit down. Did Bes offer you one of those cookies? They’re amazing.”

“She did, yeah,” Jess replies, then turns to Finn. “So, Finn… I heard you were doing tacticals for that wild space job we flew.”

“Oh, yeah,” Finn replies, “The one last week? With the three suns?”

“Right. Totally unbelievable!” Jess grins just remembering it. “That was a good job you did there. Very sound analysis. I’m impressed. I’ve told the General to not let Poe keep you all to himself.”

“Hey!” Poe protests.

“Hush, Dameron, you don’t get to hog all the cool newbies. Though, technically, I guess you’re not even that new anymore. Almost a month and a half now.”

“Wow.” Finn huffs out a breath. “Really?”

He hadn’t even realised. It went by so fast.

Poe seems surprised, too. He glances at his chrono, then at Jess like he can’t believe she noticed before him. Finn catches her winking at Poe, and that’s just not fair. He can’t have those two conspiring right in the room where he might get his hopes up.

“He’s basically senior management by now,” Poe says.

“An old hat,” Jess adds.

“A Resistance mythosaurus,” Finn says.

Poe bursts out into laughter first.

“Is that a thing?” he asks between fits of laughter.

“I thought they lived on Mandalore?” Finn says, “Like, a long time ago. It was in our database. The natives built inside their skulls.”

“That sounds gross,” Jess says, “But I like how you think.”

Finn grins as Jess slaps his shoulder companionably.

As the party winds down, Finn finds himself squashed into a corner with Jess, outmanoeuvred by a kissing couple and the people whose floor this is who have started cleaning the room. Jess seems quite happy to have found a moment alone with him, though.

“So, how do you like it here?” she asks innocently enough, but when Finn looks at her he sees two faces – the woman who smiles easily and jokes and shares laughs with her teammates, and the woman who can pilot an X-Wing through enemy without flinching and live to tell the tale. She’s easily a head shorter than Finn, but when she looks at him, it doesn’t show at all.

“It’s… much better than the First Order,” Finn says lamely, but Jess laughs and he knows he said the right thing.

“Poe is right – you _are_ a miracle, Finn.” She shakes her head unbelievingly, and Finn suddenly realises this isn’t a test. That she’s just honestly curious to get to know him, but has a hard time turning off her battle-readiness, like every soldier.

“He… says that? About me?”

Jess looks at him like she’s trying to figure something out, and with the way she’s been looking at him look at Poe the entire evening Finn is half sure she almost has him figured out. He swallows, and hopes his nervousness doesn’t show.

“He’s been nothing but amazed by you since you first got him off that Star Destroyer,” Jess says, and then slaps his back again like it means something. Finn wishes – not for the first time – that people were easier to read. That they weren’t so goddamn cryptic and different from the close-knit, all-knowing brotherhood of First Order soldiers. It’s a hard time coming down from knowing everything about the people around you.

Then again, Finn wouldn’t trade this for the world.

“I did nothing special,” Finn says, and knows it’s the wrong thing to say, because he still wakes up sweating at night because _it was real_ and _he did this_ , but there is nothing else he could reply. Saving Poe is simultaneously the bravest and most normal thing he ever did. It was the only logical consequence to draw from what he had seen, and it was utterly stupid.

“Oh, he thinks you’re plenty special,” Jess says, then interrupts herself, “Oh, Dana made it. Sorry, gotta dash.”

Which Finn realises is a lie when he sees Poe approach with a big but tired smile, who comes to wrap his arms around Finn.

“I am literally dead on my feet,” he groans, leaning on Finn to support him and pressing his forehead to Finn’s shoulder.

Finn – who is somewhat frozen in shock – reaches out to awkwardly pat his back. “Uh… sorry, man.”

Poe chuckles, and Finn nearly jumps because he can feel Poe laughing, it’s a soft vibration on his shoulder and down his upper arm.

“Then… I’ll bring you to your room,” Finn offers, and Poe hugs him a little bit tighter for a moment, but Finn forgets how to breathe for entirely different reasons. Poe is _warm_ , and Poe is soft and yielding next to him, and Finn wants nothing more than to crawl into bed with him and _hold_ him like this for an eternity.

“Good idea,” Poe says. Finn is so fucked.

\--

Rey is sitting opposite from Luke, her legs folded under her body and her eyes closed.

She is supposed to be meditating.

They’re on the Millenium Falcon, which is parked outside of base, a little way away from the hangar, and which Luke seems to have declared their official training space, even though space is one of the only things the Falcon doesn’t offer in abundance. What seems to matter to Luke is the fact that people rarely ever come to disturb them on here, and by _rarely_ Rey means _never_. There’s just the quiet hum of the emergency systems running in the background, and the sounds of their breathing and clothes rustling.

It’s entirely too quiet.

No, that’s not right – Rey has lived alone for most of her life, and as such is used to the silence. It’s the wrong kind of quiet here, she realises, not at all the kind of silence she has come to associate with serenity. And Luke is an unfamiliar presence in a space which is supposed to let her relax.

So while Luke is meditating, Rey is blinking through her eyelids trying to figure out how much longer she’ll have to sit here, and when she will start to learn something useful.

One thing she has learnt in her first days training with Luke is patience.

“You don’t seem very focussed,” Luke remarks, and Rey flinches and wonders how he _always_ does that. It’s probably something to do with the Force.

“Sorry,” Rey says automatically, and closes her eyes harder as if that will help her focus. Still she can hear Luke sigh, and then the rustling of clothes that indicates he has moved. She carefully opens one eye, and sees Luke standing up.

“It won’t work like that.”

Rey barely supresses a remark that probably would have offended Luke’s Jedi sensibilities. While she has learnt patience in the last week or so, she has also grown frustrated with the progress of her training. If she is supposed to save the galaxy with the help of Luke Skywalker, she supposes it will have to wait some more years.

“I’m trying my best!” she says, and Luke opens his mouth like he has a reply for that ready but closes it again.

“Yes, I believe you.” He sits down in front of her, taking a deep breath and continuing to speak with a very calm voice that only serves to aggravate Rey more. “The trouble is; this isn’t something you can make happen. The Force is something you only _let_ happen.”

If there’s one thing Rey probably hasn’t been very good at in her life so far, it’s letting things happen. That’s not how you survive on Jakku, and Rey knows that. You take responsibility for yourself. You do what you can. Dumb luck doesn’t come to anyone. It’s usually because of something you did.

Which is why she still gets shivers when she thinks back to the cell and the Stormtrooper. She hadn’t expected her little mind trick to work, it had been the last thing on her mind and yet…

“I am _trying_ ,” she emphasises again trough gritted teeth.

“Is it the exercise?” Luke asks, “Meditation is important, and it’s an easy way to make you aware of the ways you’ve already been using the Force throughout your life. But you can tell me if you feel like it doesn’t help you. There are other ways to connect with the Force, after all.”

One day, Rey is going to choke on all the things she doesn’t say to Luke Skywalker’s face. She doesn’t say that it’s not just the meditation, that it’s this whole bloody Resistance and all the expectations that come with her showing up with the wrong lightsaber at the wrong time. She only ever wanted her family. Now she found a legacy and she’s not sure what she’s supposed to do with it.

“Maybe that would be a good idea,” she says.

Luke nods solemnly. He is always like this – stern, quiet and utterly unhelpful in Rey’s path towards becoming a Jedi. Honestly, she learnt more about the Jedi in a two-minute conversation with Poe and a quick search on the Resistance database than she has from Luke.

“Tomorrow we’ll take a trip out into the forests. You should bring an overnight bag in case we don’t make it back to base on time, but keep it light. Meet me here tomorrow at five am.”

Rey nods, then hesitates. Luke catches her hesitation.

“You can go for now.”

Rey makes her way back to base. She knows Poe is invited to some celebration tonight and asked her and Finn to join them – she had to decline because of her training with Luke that was supposed to go longer, but doesn’t feel like joining them right now, anyway. There will be other people at the party, in any case, and those she wants to face even less. She just wants to curl up in bed and cry. She hasn’t felt like crying in a long time, even during those times when missing the people who left her behind felt like a Sarlacc eating away at the inside of her chest, but now she is exhausted, in an unfamiliar environment and utterly alone, and she wants to cry.

She makes it to her and Finn’s shared room and just crashes on top of the blanket, not bothering to take off her shoes, and cries herself to sleep. When she wakes up the next morning, Finn’s bed is still unused and she steals away to meet Luke at the Falcon before he can return.

\--

The next week, Finn doesn’t see Poe or Rey at all.

Rey left him a message saying she’s with Luke on some Force sabbatical, and Poe, as Finn learns from the General in the command centre, has been sent to Nar Shadda on a quick notice. Again, it’s very hush-hush, so that even Finn, who apart from his free time spends most of his time in the command centre, doesn’t know what it’s all about. Then again, that’s probably the point of secret operations, and Finn doesn’t begrudge Poe for that.

Besides, he’s made some friends in the command centre, and Anya takes him out for drinks with her friends the minute she hears he’s free for the night. They spend a very enjoyable evening in some part of base Finn has never been to before, where some of the Hapan Resistance members are settled. Anya takes him out twice more, first for drinks again – Finn is beginning to realise that the drinking culture is half of what keeps the Resistance together, because the lack of bars makes it necessary to instead hold small gathering in the semi-private rooms of one or the other squad and everybody gets to know each other – and then to see a ‘vid that’s being put on in one of the hangars. Anya assures him it’s all very rudimentary, that the technology on Centax-3 is much better, but Finn likes the makeshift screen and the boxes that serve as seats, even when it’s half killing his back. He likes to see the different Resistance members among themselves, not at their jobs but enjoying themselves, because every moment like this makes him remember why it’s so good to be here and not anywhere else. He refuses to think of this ‘anywhere else’. The Resistance is diverse, it’s colourful and sometimes loud and unorganised, but also dedicated and loyal.

By day five, Finn learns that Poe will be back in two days. Apparently, his mission is drawing to a close with less than the desired results, if the General grinding her teeth is anything to go by. But she assures Finn that Poe is alright.

Rey and Luke are still gone, though.

When Poe comes back on day seven, he is fine save for a few already fading bruises. He doesn’t mention how he got them, and Finn doesn’t ask, but Poe receives a stern lecture from the General about taking unnecessary risks. Finn isn’t there for that, but he is there when Poe tells Jess about it. Jess, much to Poe’s horror, agrees with the General, and Poe is subsequently manhandled to his room and into the shower by the combined efforts of Snap, Jess and Finn. Snap offers high-fives when they’re done, and the three of them dissolve into laughter when Poe calls out of the shower that he can still hear them.

“We know!” Jess calls, “That’s the whole _point_.”

Finn can picture Poe grumbling about how he doesn’t deserve friends like them, but Snap goes to grab some food from the mess so really, they’re kind of the best of friends.

\--

D’Quar has much to offer that Rey didn’t expect to find when she first set foot on the planet.

It’s a pity that she discovers most of that in training with Luke, and she discovers it cursing and sweating as she moves through the forest. She never knew making a way through the forest is so much work.

Deserts she can do, she thinks, sand might be treacherous to walk on but she grew up with it and she knows it. Deserts are wide and open. Forests are more like the interiors of long-dead starships – there are many unexpected sharp edges, ravines, and a multitude of things to climb up or jump down from.

They are unlike starships in that there are a lot of great clearings to meditate on.

Luke still doesn’t speak. He’s sunk further and further into himself since they left base. Mostly he trudges ahead, their knapsack with rations on his back, and doesn’t even turn to look if she keeps up. When they stop, he outlines her exercises in concise sentences, and watches her silently until she is done. Even when they practise with lightsabers – well, with sticks to stand in for lightsabers – he never breaks a sweat, never comments or swears. When they are done, he tells her what she did right and what she did wrong, offers her the bottle of water and moves on.

Rey is beginning to think she is doing something wrong.

Patience, she tells herself. Serenity. It would help if she actually knew how this Jedi thing was supposed to go.

At least she’s seeing new things every day. The deeper they get into the forest, the denser the multitude of species around them gets, and Rey catalogues them in her mind and looks them up on her datapad later, when they stop to make camp at night. There are little to no rodents on D’Quar, which means an abundance of avian species are roaming the forest. Those were a rare sight in the dry desert of Jakku, save for the ones traded as snacks at the outpost, and she is enjoying cataloguing the colours and patterns of feathers. On day three, she discovers that she can always spot the birds a split-second before they move, and realises it’s because she’s feeling their presence in the Force. Somehow, animals feel different than the plants – or Luke, for that matter. Luke is a strange presence; Rey concludes on day five. She can always feel him clearly, but it’s like he half blends into his surroundings with the help of the Force. She can’t pinpoint what makes him _Luke_.

On day six, she wakes up and misses Finn and Poe.

\--

The buzzer of his apartment door drags Poe out of the very enjoyable free-morning-lying-around-in-bed sleepiness he wanted to spend the morning in. Grumbling, he wraps the blanket around his shoulders and gets up to open the door for what is probably just Snap who forgot his keys again.

It’s not Snap.

“Morning!” a very chipper Finn says in Poe’s still sleepy face, “I thought you might like to join me for breakfast!”

Now, the thing is, when Finn smiles like this Poe can hardly deny him anything. It’s like his brain directly re-routes his answer to be a very enthusiastic _yes_ without consulting higher logical functions, so despite the fact that he probably looks like half a ghoul with his hair in disarray and the blanket half slipping from his shoulders, he immediately straightens up.

“Absolutely!” he exclaims, then catches the blanket before it slips off his shoulders completely. “Uhh, just give me a minute to get dressed, ok?”

“Sure,” Finn says. He then is momentarily distracted by BB-8, who comes rushing out of Poe’s shared room to greet Finn with very enthusiastic beeping noises, and Finn crouches down to say hello in turn. Poe knows for a fact that Finn still has no idea what BB-8 is beeping about, which makes this all the more endearing.

Poe goes to find a shirt and some pants, then goes back out to join Finn.

“Ready?”

“Sure.”

They make their way to the mess, not talking much save for Finn asking how Poe has been. Once in the mess, they find a quiet table and get their rations. The standard rations are still disgusting.

“So Rey is out with Luke?” Poe asks, “For what, a week now?”

“As far as I know.” Finn shrugs. “She hasn’t come back to our room, anyway. The General says they’re fine, though, apparently Luke has to call in every other day because she doesn’t trust him not to go running off on his own again.”

“It’s a reasonable concern with him,” Poe says, and after a few more bites of his ration adds, “I just hope Rey’s okay out there. And that she’s enjoying her training. It seems kind of hard, a week in the wild…”

“It does,” Finn agrees thoughtfully. Poe is still amazed by the fact that Finn can eat his rations without even blinking. He’s so caught up in his thoughts that he doesn’t even realise he must have been staring at Finn.

“Hey,” Finn says suddenly, and takes Poe’s hand, the one he is not using to shovel rations into his mouth. “She’ll be fine. Probably more fine than we’d be in her situation.”

Poe stares at their joint hands first, and then at Finn’s crooked smile and feels his heart jump. Oh Force, he is so far gone.

“Probably,” he agrees, trying to match Finn’s smile. He doesn’t want Finn to let go of his hand, but he’s not sure how to bring it up in a polite way. _Hey, would you please hold my hand forever, also I want to kiss your beautiful face_. No, that certainly won’t work.

Unfortunately, Finn withdraws his hand to check his chrono. “I have to be at the command centre in ten. Should we do something tonight?”

Poe clears his throat. “Absolutely. I’ll have a ‘vid and food ready by the time your shift ends. Does that sound good?”

“Perfect,” Finn says. He gives Poe another wide smile before he gets up to clear away his tray. Poe just hopes that Jess never catches him staring at Finn, or he’ll never hear the end of it.

\--

“I finished my training on a planet that was a large swamp,” Luke tells her on day eight, as they sit down beside a lake where they practised sparring with sticks to stand in for lightsabers. They’re quite far from base, have been for a while now, and Rey bites back a comment about how the swamp planet might explain Luke’s predilection for devoid-of-human environments.

“Who taught you?” she asks instead, because while Luke is very willing to teach her _the ways_ of the Jedi, he doesn’t tell her much about the Jedi _themselves_. All she knows about them she knows from Poe’s stories and the subpar Resistance database entry on them.

When Luke looks out over the lake, Rey is almost sure he won’t answer. If anything, the shadows under his eyes have become more pronounced since his return into society. Rey knows he doesn’t sleep much, because at night, Luke tells her to get some rest and then paces the forests when he thinks she is asleep. She hasn’t yet told him that she’s a light sleeper, and that she notices when he goes away for hours at a time.

Luke takes in a breath like he’s preparing himself for a long answer, shaking Rey out of her thoughts.

“I was taught by a very wise Jedi named Yoda,” he says, and his shoulders sag, “And Obi-Wan Kenobi before that.”

Rey knows about the Purge that helped the Empire rise to power by eliminating large parts of the Force-sensitive population – mostly Jedi at the time. Luke was born shortly after that historic event that has largely been erased from the history books as fiction, a non-verifiable war crime in a war that cost billions of lives. Any Jedi to have taught Luke must have survived the unthinkable.

“What were they like?”

Luke looks at her curiously.

“If you’re wondering if I had to do hours of physical training, too – the answer is yes. Although I was and still probably am considerably less fit than you,” he admits ruefully, and Rey – as always – is fascinated by the momentary transformation from ageless Jedi to ageing farmboy. Sometimes he still seems so young and hopeful.

Rey doesn’t want to push him too hard. Something – and that something is probably the Force, she knows that now – tells her that there is a piece of information she can, she _should_ get to. And a thought comes to her, a memory –she on base, people looking at her like they expect her to do something great, and it’s curious, because she doesn’t even know what it is they want from her, and Luke on the other side of everything isn’t much more helpful. Half of what she gets out of him seems to be a concession, but there’s more to it than mere reluctance. Luke seems to try teaching her without actually teaching her.

Rey wonders if the same things that keep Luke awake at night keep him from teaching her.

“For someone who is allegedly less fit than me, you sure do hit pretty well with a stick,” Rey says. She’s so bad at conversation, she always thinks, she is either always too personal or too distanced, and right now she’s trying to angle the conversation away from the trickier areas to more light-hearted ground. The Luke who isn’t scared of his own shadow is still in there somewhere, she knows, because she, too, has seen pretty terrifying things but kept a happy place inside of her despite of that. And that place is what she hopes to connect to.

Luke laughs, a short barking sound.

“Yeah, waving around the glow-stick is the easy part.” He shakes his head. “You probably shouldn’t listen to half of what I say. I used to wonder how Obi-Wan got so cryptic and unhelpful with age, but apparently life as the last Jedi will do that to you. It’s not as fun as the holovid-ads make it out to be.”

It’s clear that Luke is upset, but Rey can’t get behind what it is that’s upsetting him. It’s annoying, like a machine part too dented to be wrenched loose. Usually, when she encounters a problem like this, her _modus operandi_ is to hit it until something budged. Somehow, she thinks, that is not the appropriate response here.

“How do you mean?”

Rey puts a little nudge into her words, something that carries via more than her voice. If she is supposed to be a Jedi, she is also supposed to be good at reaching out to people.

Luke looks at her with a hint of surprise, and Rey knows she’s getting better at this.

“It means there’s no manual,” he says, facing ahead again as if he’s concentrating, “There’s only the way I was taught, and that was a mess. I never learnt how to be a Jedi.”

He wrings his hands.

“I went to look for everything that is still written down about the Jedi. I tried talking to Obi-Wan until I was blue in the face. I meditated, I slept on it, and still nothing. I’m not a master, I’m the person who failed Leia and Han and, most of all, Ben.”

Rey feels her heart sag a little. This man, this legend whom everyone revers, is just another man, who feels overwhelmed at the task ahead of him. She remembers when she thought she wasn’t looking for someone to save them all. Now she realises she might have been hoping. Just a little.

“I’m sure you did your best,” she says timidly. There are no right words that she knows for what Luke is telling her.

“I might have. Maybe I could have been a better Jedi if I hadn’t been self-taught in a cave for half of my training. See, what I know about Force-users is that there’s not only black and white, Jedi and Sith. There are hundreds upon thousands of beings out there who fall somewhere between on the spectrum, and the Jedi called them grey Force-users or dark-ish Force-users or stood-in-the-shadow-for-a-bit-too-long Force-users, but they never talked about what it _meant_ for people.”

“They really called them that?” Rey asks.

“No, they didn’t.” Luke doesn’t seem like he’s even halfway done yet. “Okay, let me ask you a question. Do you want to be a Jedi?”

“Yes,” Rey says immediately, because she listened to General Organa and Maz Kanata and knows the right answer to that question. She is the last hope for dark times, the one they will have to count on if Luke decides to be unhelpful again. She is supposed to fix what Kylo Ren did wrong, she’ll outbalance his darkness and bring peace to the galaxy. It’s why she was able to pick up Luke’s lightsaber, after all.

Luke shakes his head.

“No. That’s not the right answer. Let me ask again. _Why_ do you want to be a Jedi?”

“I—” Rey pauses. “I…”

Because she has to save the galaxy? Rey knows herself how ridiculous that sounds. She’s a skinny girl from Jakku who can hold her own in the fight, but she’s not hero material. The only good thing that ever happened to her was meeting Finn, and meeting Poe. Apart from that, the galaxy is constantly fucking her over.

“I have to learn the ways of the Force, so I can…”

The more she gets lost in trying to find an answer, the more serene Luke seems to become. It’s like he sees something she doesn’t, and it’s aggravating Rey.

“If it’s control of the Force you’re looking for, there are other ways to learn that besides being a Jedi.”

He gets up from where he is sitting now, flexing his legs and pacing in front of her on the soft grass with slow steps.

“The Jedi had strict teachings. Rules about attachment, about how to live and work and die. But they also brought the Republic into a war where they should have been the ones mediating between the two sides. I don’t think what the galaxy needs right now is more Jedi.”

Luke has his eyes fixed on his feet. He seems to look beyond the ground, into a past Rey knows next to nothing about.

“I won’t teach you how to be a Jedi. I tried that once and I failed, and I honestly don’t think I will ever be able to teach anyone else. But I can teach you how to use the Force, and what to do and what to avoid, and you’ll find your own path from there on out.”

Luke stops, and looks up, and smiles at Rey. It’s less happy than the carefree smiles she catches him smiling when he forgets the fate of the galaxy for a brief moment, but it seems relieved. Rey wonders how long this has been sitting on his temper. Did he realised even before she came to find him on his island that one day someone would come to ask him to teach them, and he would have to refuse? Luke is smiling the smile of someone who knows that the worst is behind them.

“I think that’s only fair,” Rey says. She feels a little lonelier, but also a little relieved – there aren’t quite as many expectations attached to the label _Force-user_ than there are to the label _Jedi_. And if Luke Skywalker is just another man with just as many insecurities as any of them, then that doesn’t have to be a bad thing.

“If you don’t like their teachings, why do you still follow them?” Rey asks.

Luke cocks his head like he wasn’t expecting that question.

“It’s not that I don’t like their teachings,” he says carefully, “I just think they don’t work for everyone. In fact, they work for very few people, and they’re not terribly effective. Some of the wisest Force-users were, in fact, pretty terrible at being Jedi.”

He gets a distanced look for a second, then shakes his head. “In any case, I learnt how to be a Jedi so I could fulfil my purpose, but it cost me a great deal. I lost my hand, and very nearly my life and my sister. I’d spare you that, if I can.”

He sits down cross-legged in front of her then. Rey notices the dark circles again, the dry and wrinkled skin and shaggy hair. She compares it with the image of bright-eyed Luke in her mind, and looks for the resemblance. There’s very little right now.

“I promise to teach you to the best of my knowledge, but I want you to know that that might not be enough. You’ll have to stand on your own feet quite a lot. It probably won’t be easy. But you can always ask me for help, and I’ll give my best.”

_Jedi don’t doubt_ , Rey thinks sombrely. Maybe Luke, too, is coming to terms with the fact that he is less of a Jedi than he previously thought.

“I promise to use my own mind, and I’ll call you out if I think it’s necessary,” Rey says. She doesn’t yet know how the Force works, but she can feel it right now, like the moment you pull at the thread of an entangled net and it all comes lose again, the elation and relief that comes with it. “We’ll figure it out.”

“Yes, we will,” Luke says with determination.

\--

They come back to base in the dead of night, and Rey quietly unlocks the doors to her and Finn’s room. In the dark, she can barely make out two silhouettes on the bed – Finn and Poe, she realises. They're holding each other, Finn's face showing a soft smile, and Poe's forehead smooth, with no creases from worrying. They are breathing in synch. A smile steals onto Rey's face.

She puts down her bag, and goes to wash the forest out of her hair. It feels relieving, like she's letting go of all the expectations as well, leaving only her best hopes for the future. Finn shifts a little as she climbs into bed behind him. It’s a tight fit, but Rey is skinny. They’ll fit. Finn smells like standard soap, not a hint of desert sand, and on the other side of him, Poe is breathing quietly.

They’ll figure this out. Tomorrow or the day after, Rey knows. She'll find the words to say to both of them.

For now, she will sleep soundly. She has no doubt that the galaxy still has things in store for them, that Ren is somewhere out there and that they’ll have to pass many tests before they truly get to rest. But right now, they will rest, and no visions will come to haunt Rey’s dreams.

Poe’s hand reaches for Rey’s, across Finn’s sleep-warm body. She closes her eyes, and breathes.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading. You can also find me on tumblr at veganthranduil.


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